Melrose breaks promise to protect UK jobs

Job losses: Melrose is to close GKN Automotive’s assembly plant in Birmingham

The corporate raider that controversially bought GKN was accused of sending British jobs abroad last night after plans to close yet another factory emerged.

Melrose bought the manufacturing giant for £8billion two years ago and made promises to ministers that it would maintain a UK workforce and invest in its manufacturing capabilities.

But it has since slashed hundreds of jobs, with fresh outrage erupting yesterday as it emerged that a plant in Birmingham will now be shuttered as well. 

The decision to close GKN Automotive’s assembly plant in Erdington, a site which dates back to the 1930s, puts 519 jobs at risk.

GKN claimed the site was no longer viable because of ‘an increasingly competitive global market’ – triggering claims it planned to move the jobs to its other sites in Europe.

Workers were left ‘shocked and angry’ by the unexpected news, according to union Unite.

A spokesman for GKN said: ‘Proposing this closure is a difficult decision.’