On a clear day, from the Lickey Hills you can see the towers of Birmingham's city centre and the jets taking off from its international airport. At their foot the giant Longbridge plant sprawls across the landscape; 490 acres, spanning the county boundary and dwarfing the surrounding housing. Even on a sunny day, it has a brooding air. Once it was the flagship of Britain's automotive industry, known to generations simply as the Austin, after its founder. In the 1970s it became the battleground for management and unions. By the 1990s, the decline was all too apparent: Longbridge's owner, MG Rover, had become the English patient, a German joke against its parent, BMW. The Munich-based car maker's exit in 2000 and Longbridge's final demise in 2005 under the businessmen known as the Phoenix Four - both just before elections with a fistful of Labour marginals at stake - added political drama to a saga of industrial decline.
Now, however, regeneration is in the air. Yesterday Nanjing Automobile Corporation, the Chinese car maker which bought many of the assets of MG Rover, confirmed that it was planning to restart production of the MG TF sports car in the spring and the first two of a series of test vehicles have been made. Much of the manufacturing will be at Nanjing's home plant in China, using plant taken out of Longbridge, but final assembly of the right-hand drive version will be at the West Midlands plant. The first cars should be in UK showrooms in the second half of the year.
"The re-opening of the Birmingham-based plant will bring a welcome boost to the local economy, employing many former MG Rover workers who will provide valuable product knowledge and skills. NAC MG is planning to resume production in spring 2007," the company said in a statement.
The only indication of a Chinese presence at Longbridge is a red flag and a small sign on one of the buildings next to the plant's gate Q. Indeed Nanjing has maintained a low profile since it moved into Longbridge. However, the Chinese car maker clearly has ambitious plans to use MG Rover's technology to develop its product line-up.
A number of Chinese car makers have joint ventures with European or US partners but increasingly Chinese companies are developing independently. Nanjing, for example, faced competition to buy MG Rover assets from its rival, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation. Shanghai then went on to work with a UK-based automotive consultancy on product development.
Although Nanjing has not said how many workers it will employ at Longbridge, where it occupies roughly a third of the old factory space, local newspaper reports suggest the workforce will increase from around 110 to 250 - a fraction of the 6,500 who lost their jobs when MG Rover collapsed.
The destiny of the remainder of the site rests with the developer, St Modwen, which owns the bulk of Longbridge, as well as the development agency, Advantage West Midlands, which also owns a slice, and the planners in Birmingham and Bromsgrove. Work on clearing the ground is already well under way.
Much of the old plant has already been given over to the bulldozers and diggers. Last week the demolition men were ripping the heart out of the east works, once the place where Rover's K-series engines were made in their thousands. Some 26,000 tonnes of steel and 75,000 tonnes of old bricks and concrete have been recycled. Much of what is left will soon be gone.
But what will fill the space cleared by the demolition gangs? After widespread consultation, owners and planners are considering four options; ranging from an employment-led alternative to others including increasing provision for housing, shops, education and community facilities. All aim to provide at least 10,000 jobs and the planners are expected to announce their preferred scheme next month.
Finding the right option will not be easy. Longbridge does not sit in isolation but cheek-by-jowl with large-scale housing. Birmingham council is pouring millions of pounds into the local housing stock, working with government, housing associations and the private sector. Estates like Nimmings Farm and Egg Hill, for example, are to be transformed. The Lickey Hills, with its country park, has some very desirable postcodes. Longbridge's industrial past is still evident, despite the demolition, but so is its near-rural location. Alongside the site are 75 acres of parkland. The Longbridge estate even includes a farm.
Construction work has already started. St Modwen is well on its way with a £15m development of a twin block for technology-based start-up businesses. It is designed to form part of a central technology belt stretching from Birmingham to Malvern. Anthony Glossop, St Modwen chairman, made it clear at the launch of the technology park that the aim at Longbridge was to create "10,000 new jobs and a new heart for the area. Nanjing is not the only company to have moved into Longbridge. PRG Europe, a supplier of lighting and other equipment for big events such as concerts, has taken a warehouse which used to be MG Rover's parts distribution centre.
The area has survived the demise of MG Rover surprisingly well. The government pushed through an aid package to support those who lost their jobs and to help them retrain and find other work. The housing market, usually a telling indicator, has been relatively robust. Ian Williams, a partner in estate agents Robert Oulsnam & Co, said the impact on the housing market "has not been as devastating as people feared it might be." One reason is that MG Rover drew its workforce from a wide area; its close proximity to the motorway network meant many workers were commuters.
But what do the locals think should happen? Rose Green, who has lived in the area for 18 years, reckons redevelopment will help unemployment and the idea of a college on the doorstep will be a boon for the local youngsters who left school without enough qualifications. She is looking forward, too, to the new shopping facilities. "It's like a ghost town down here, it's gone dead ... It has picked up a bit, but not a vast amount."
Jagir Singh, who runs the Longbridge Superstore, estimates his turnover fell 20% when Longbridge closed, though that was partly offset when he took over as the local sub postmaster from another business which shut down around the same time. For him redevelopment could be a mixed blessing - a bigger market but more competition from the shops which will move into the new retail developments. So what would he like to see? "I think if they built some houses, that would be nice ... and some recreational activities - facilities for during the day and in the evening; that would be lovely."
Backstory
When the production line at Longbridge ground to a halt in early April 2005, it marked the end of a century of output at the West Midlands plant. Longbridge was created by Herbert Austin, turning out vast fleets of the cars which bore his name. During the two world wars Longbridge was pressed into service to make munitions. In 1956 Austin was merged with Morris and just over a decade later the business became part of British Leyland.
That company was nationalised in 1975 and at the end of the decade forged an alliance with the Japanese car maker, Honda. In 1986, a much reduced group was renamed Rover and in 1988 was sold to British Aerospace. In 1994, the manufacturer was again sold, this time to the Munich-based BMW, which saw Rover as a way to achieve critical mass in the European market. In 2000, however, BMW gave up on the "English patient" and MG Rover was sold to a consortium of British businessmen, the Phoenix Four, for a nominal £10 though BMW kept the Mini brand and the plant at Cowley.
The Phoenix Four sought an overseas partner to help fund the development of new models but when long-running negotiations with the Chinese company, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, failed MG Rover was forced to call in the administrators. A subsequent sale saw most of the assets sold to another Chinese company, Nanjing Automobile Corporation, which has taken a 33-year lease on part of Longbridge and is promising production again this spring.
