Manufacturing to resume at Luton plant with increased health precautions

Date: Friday, May 15, 2020 | Author: Illya Verpraet

Now owned by PSA, Luton is Vauxhall's historic home

PSA is restarting its Luton manufacturing plant, where it produces the Vauxhall Vivaro, Peugeot Expert and Citroën Dispatch, from 18 May.

The parent company of Vauxhall, Citroën and Peugeot says it is reinforcing the health measures and deploying them before it restarts. When it does resume production, it will be with employees who have volunteered to return.

The restart will be gradual and driven by commercial activity, given that demand for vehicles will take time to recover.

Colin MacDonald, director of the Luton plant, said: "Since the shutdown of our site, we have implemented a reinforced health protocol on our industrial site with the support of our medical service and in close collaboration with our union partners.

“Thanks to this collective effort, validated by the audit that took place on 4 May, we can resume the manufacturing of the commercial vehicles on Monday 18 May, in a progressive and safe manner."

To ensure that Covid-19 doesn’t spread between employees, the facility will use individual transport wherever possible. Where this isn’t possible, it will introduce masks and measures to maintain social distance.

Temperature checks will be introduced at the entrance to the site, in addition to symptom self-monitoring files.

All employees will get a supply of masks, alcoholic gel, and will be asked to wear glasses and masks. There will be more frequent cleaning and parts from outside suppliers will be quarantined. Finally, rotations will be adjusted to make sure that teams’ shifts don’t cross over.

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