Hitachi’s chair, Toshiaki Higashihara, has issued a warning about the future of the company’s Newton Aycliffe train factory if construction plans for HS2’s scrapped northern leg aren’t revived.
Higashihara warned in a Financial Times interview that unless significant infrastructure projects are launched within the next year, the factory's 750 jobs could be jeopardised.
“If [the northern leg] stays cancelled, then the volume of work at Newton Aycliffe goes down, so the issue is rising in terms of the extent to which we must think about manpower,” Higashihara said.
“If the Labour government doesn’t re-examine plans within one year, it’s going to be a problem,” he added.
Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak ditched the ambitious northern stretch of the heavily over-budget HS2 project, which would have connected Manchester and Birmingham, in October 2023.
Although there have been rumours of Labour mulling relaunching the project, the rumours are unlikely to materialise into fact.
Costs associated with the project have spiralled out of control since the government announced the project over a decade ago.
Originally expected to cost around £37.5 billion, subsequent estimates pushed the project’s costs closer to £100 billion.
“For Labour, the original plan connects to economic development and regional revitalisation, so I think returning to the original plan would be better for the development of the UK,” said Higashihara.
“We want to support the workforce at Newton Aycliffe to the highest degree, but the era where we need to think about that might be coming based on the volume of work.”