More than 420 workers stand to lose their jobs following the decision to close the Peterborough factory making Hotpoint and Indesit fridges.
Indesit says the closure of the complex in Peterborough has been prompted as there has been a decline in the market for fridges across the UK. Although trade rumours would point more toward cost cutting as the primary reason as was alluded to in the leaked document we reported about In an article from January and, with the closure of the Blythe Bridge facility as well as the job losses at Bodelwyddan in North Wales (reported here) it leaves Hotpoint/Indesit with no UK manufacturing ability to speak of.
Indesit also said that there has been an increase in manufacturing costs.
Indesit will now consult unions over plans to halt production on 31 October with the loss of 426 jobs.
But Indesit said it was still committed to the UK and employed about 1,000 people in its head office, call centre and service centre in Morley Way, Peterborough. Shailesh Vara MP, speaking to the BBC, whose North West Cambridgeshire constituency includes the Indesit plant, said: “I am extremely disappointed at this news.
“I have already spoken with the managing director of Indesit and asked him to consider every option open to them with a view to saving as many jobs as possible.
“My sympathies go out to all those workers and their families who have this cloud hanging over them.”