Perseverance pays off

Ellesmere Port looked set for closure amid Brexit, but the people there never gave up, earning the factory a new lease of life. John Evans visits as electric van making begins

- John Evans

In the shadow of the Stanlow oil refinery, visible from the M53 as the motorway passes through Ellesmere Port on its way to Liverpool, they're building the future - an electric future. Vauxhall began manufacturing cars here in 1964. It stopped doing so in April 2022. Now, less than 18 months later, following a £100 million refit, the factory has begun making electric vans for Stellantis's Citroën, Fiat, Opel, Peugeot and Vauxhall brands.

I've been coming to this region for all of my 63 years and know it for the 'Stanlow stench' of rotten eggs and the refinery's ghostly gas flares. But I know the people, too. Well, some of them. Like their neighbours farther down the Mersey, they're big-hearted and happy to roll up their sleeves when there's a job to be done. And there's a job to be done at this factory - to show their overlords that they can build and deliver electric vans to Stellantis's standards on time and on budget. If they can't, there are plenty of other plants elsewhere in Europe happy to do so for them. So far, the signs are promising.

"Right up until early 2021, as Astra production was drawing to a close, people here thought they had no future, but they didn't give up," recalls plant director Diane Miller. "They wanted job security for themselves and their families and also for their friends and neighbours elsewhere among our local suppliers. I've seen staff in other plants cave in and take the redundancy money. Not these people."