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Manufacturing

Hitachi says County Durham jobs are not fully safe despite winning 拢400m contract

The firm has just won a contract to build 165 carriages at Newton Aycliffe

(Image: publicity handout from Hitachi 海角视频)

Hitachi Rail 海角视频 has said that the long term future of its workers has still not been secured despite the company winning a £400m contract.

The engineering firm employs around 700 people at its factory in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, where the company has made trains for the likes of LNER and ScotRail.

The factory was established in 2015, creating hundreds of jobs in the region, but its future has been unclear because of a dwindling pipeline of contracts.

Hope returned to the site earlier this week when Hitachi was unveiled as the winner of a £400m contract that will see it build 165 intercity trains to run on the East Midlands Railway. The contract was awarded by Abellio, which chose the North East factory over rival Bombardier.

(Image: Hitachi)

But despite the good news, Hitachi has warned that the long term future of its workforce will not be secure until the company wins at least one more contract.

A spokesman for the company said: “Whilst today is really welcome and positive news for Newton Aycliffe and the wider regional supply chain, we still require more orders for 2020 onwards which we are working very hard to achieve.”

When asked what would happen if the County Durham site failed to secure more contracts, the Hitachi representative added: “We are not thinking of that at the moment as there are loads of bids in the pipeline.

“We are bidding our intercity trains for other parts of the country. Our intercity trains have become the model of choice for train operators. They have been the main driver of the workload for Newton Aycliffe. We have only had one order at Newton Aycliffe that hasn’t been for intercity trains.”