German engineering company to invest £200m and create thousands of jobs at new plant in Goole

Siemens is planning to invest up to £200m and create hundreds of jobs in a new UK train factory in a show of a faith in the drive to improve Britain’s flagging transport infrastructure.

The German engineering company said the new plant would be located in Goole, east Yorkshire, creating up to 700 skilled engineering and manufacturing jobs, and a further 1,700 jobs in the wider UK supply chain. The company said the plant would go ahead “subject to the company’s success in major future orders”, referring to contracts for HS2 and London Underground.

Juergen Maier, chief executive of Siemens UK business, said the company believed the political will to improve Britain’s railways justified the spending pledge, as the government presses ahead with its “northern powerhouse” industrial strategy.

“We’ve got the confidence now that there is a mood to invest in railways. There is a national mood among business and government at a local and national level that we need to better connect this country.”

Maier, who recently led the industrial digitalisation review commissioned by the government, said the company had looked “up and down the country” for the right location, before settling on the 67-acre site in Goole.

“Yorkshire has long been a proud railway beacon. This investment has the potential to have a tremendous impact on the Yorkshire economy and the north of England as a whole, ensuring that the benefits of infrastructure spending are spread widely and helping to ensure the ongoing development of the UK rail industry.”

Siemens plans to start building on the site later this year. There is no specific timescale for opening the factory, which will depend on new contracts, but the firm said it should be up and running within the next couple of years.

The Munich-based company has had UK operations for over 170 years and employs about 15,000 people. Siemens has more than 450 passenger trains in service in the UK, maintained at eight purpose-built facilities.

Maier said that in the current climate of Brexit uncertainty, it was easier to justify an investment decision to build a factory in the UK that would supply the domestic market, rather than one reliant on export orders from the rest of Europe.

“Of course, we are still going to be shipping parts so we want to maintain free and frictionless trade,” he added.

Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, said Siemens’ decision to invest in a new plant underlined the benefits of the government’s plans to improve and modernise transport in the north of England.

“From delivering brand new and refurbished trains through the great north rail project, our plans to upgrade the transpennine route to our investment in Yorkshire’s roads, we are driving forward job creation, economic growth and unlocking the potential of the northern powerhouse.”