Whilst I was away.... (Why don't you rip the heart out of the city?)

I guess this rant sums up how I feel about Ford's decision to close the Brown's Lane Jaguar factory. You know - the historic home of the classic Jaguar car?

I know that Ford will be spouting all the reasons under the sun, as to why this decision makes economic sense, but try telling that to the 400 or so men & women who will lose their jobs, and the other countless hundreds of people who rely directly or indirectly on the plant being there.

Ok - so they [Ford] have said that jobs will be transferred to the Castle Bromwich site. Whoop-de-do. That doesn't make things any easier for people in the Coventry area - Castle Bromwich (and I'm speaking from experience here!) is a real pain in the proverbial butt to get to, and how long will it be before good ol' 'Uncle Henry' decides to pull the plug on the other sites here in the UK?

And, if they can do that to the Brown's Lane factory, how much longer will the Land Rover factory at Solihull survive? Ok - the unions & management have managed to get a stay of execution on the site [the Freelander is already made at the Jaguar Halewood plant in Liverpool], but all it needs is for some little pen pusher to decide that the site isn't viable, then "goodbye Lode Lane."

I know people will think that I'm taking a swipe at Ford, and saying that the company should have stayed in the dark ages, making huge losses, but it's not a case of that at all. All I'm trying to do, is make my personal feelings known - and also to highlight the loss of Midland manufacturing heritage. As it is, the Massey Ferguson site at Banner lane is all but closed - how much more can the city of Coventry take?

Time to call it quits - I've got to go and check my car over - it's been standing for over a week, and I'm off on a fairly long drive tomorrow...

Back tomorrow [possibly]

Karen.

Do spiders scream when they see a big fat hairy human in the bath?