Anne Binding, owner of the Bake Store in Bridgend’s covered market, summed up the mood in the town: grim. “It’s sad for all those workers up there and for their families too but it’s bad for the whole town. This is the last thing we needed.”

The news that the Ford’s Bridgend engine plant, a provider of skilled, well-paid jobs in this corner of south Wales since the late 1970s, may shed more than 1,000 jobs over the next five years has been greeted with gloom, anger and recriminations.

“Everyone is affected,” said Binding. “I don’t mean to be selfish and think about me, but we do well out of Ford. If there’s a birthday or another celebration they’ll come in for our Welsh cakes. We’re all going to suffer.”

Rebecca Upton on the fruit and vegetable stall opposite has first-hand experience of what it is like when a family member loses a job at Ford.

Her husband, David, worked there on a temporary contract for a while before being told he was no longer required. “It was devastating. My husband didn’t know what he was going to do. We had a really difficult time.”

He was lucky and managed to get another job down the road from Ford making artificial hips at Biomet. “You worry that those people losing their jobs at Ford may not be so lucky. These are very difficult times.”

It was then prime minister (and Cardiff MP) James Callaghan who persuaded Henry Ford II to locate the American giant’s new engine manufacturing plant at the Waterton industrial estate between the M4 and Bridgend town centre. More than 20,000 people applied for jobs and 1,400 were taken on.

The plant opened in 1980, since when thousands of people from Bridgend and further afield have helped build engines for Volvo, Land Rover and the niche luxury Morgan as well as Ford. One of the problems now is that Bridgend’s expertise is in petrol engines in a world which may be moving towards other forms of power.

There are 1,820 workers at the plant and Bridgend College runs successful courses in the automotive industry, ensuring a conveyor belt of young people with the skills to work at Ford and in the cluster of suppliers that has formed around it. The carmaker has helped push wages up. Average gross weekly pay here is £509 compared with £498 across Wales.



“Ford has been a very good place to work over the years,” one worker who has been there for more than 20 years told the Guardian.

“Workers have traditionally been treated well and been proud to work for a famous company. The great thing for Bridgend is that they are highly skilled and decently paid jobs. If those jobs goes, the money goes from the area.

“I want others to have the same chances. Why should they be denied the chance to make a good, honest living?”

The Bridgend Ford workers are stung by the idea, contained in a leaked memo, that they are underperforming compared to other sites, including Dagenham in Essex.

A second worker was scornful that the memo included the claim that overtime at Bridgend was double Dagenham’s. “We don’t demand overtime. The management asks us to do overtime to get the work done.” The man, who has been at the plant for around a decade and is in his 30s, said he worried he would never find such a good job again if he lost his post at Ford. “This is another kick in the teeth for south Wales,” he said.

The proximity of the Port Talbot steelworks, just 14 miles down the road, makes the Ford crisis more poignant and politically sensitive. Last month Tata Steel UK workers voted in favour of measures designed to save jobs at Port Talbot and elsewhere by accepting cuts to pension benefits. Ford workers said they too were prepared to compromise to save jobs. “We can change our practices,” said one. “We’ve done it before and we’ll do it again.”

Whether Brexit is involved in Ford’s thinking over Bridgend is unclear. The union Unite puts the blame squarely on the UK’s exit from the European Union. If so, there will be those who say the people of Bridgend have themselves to blame – almost 55% of them voted in favour of Brexit.



Councillor Charles Smith, cabinet member for education and regeneration on Bridgend county borough council, said Brexit was certainly hovering in the background.

He said losing Ford would be a “body blow” to the area and called on Theresa May to do more. “I suggest she disentangle herself from destroying the country through Brexit and austerity and help. Ford in Bridgend is nationally important.”

Ford made it clear that it had not announced any job losses. It has said that to attract new business the Bridgend operation “would need to ensure its competitiveness” and addressing concerns relating to the plant’s efficiency would be “high on the agenda”.

Former council leader Jeff Jones said it was about hard-nosed business decisions. “There will be some eastern European country offering Ford a greenfield site and cheap labour. When Ford ask about infrastructure, they’ll say: ‘No problems, we’ll get an EU grant.’ I’ve worked for an American company – it’s all about profit. That’s what made America great.”