BAE Systems, Scotswood

Image: © Andrew Curtis Taken: 1 Mar 2012

View of the factory frontage on the River Tyne Image In 2010 the Government awarded a £500m contract to rival firm, General Dynamics UK in Wales, for the manufacture of new armoured Scout vehicles and training equipment. BAE Systems warned the Government that more than a third of the workforce at its Scotswood Road site would be at risk if it did not get the contract. Work on making the Terrier armoured vehicle will runs out in 2014. The company cut 100 jobs in 2011 leaving the factory to face a bleak future. The first factory here before the First World War was Vickers, a British engineering business and a major employer on Tyneside which produced guns (including the famous Vickers machine gun), shells and tanks for the war effort. At one time, 77,000 people worked at the Elswick factory - one in four of the local population. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers In 1927, Vickes merged with a second huge engineering and ship-building company, Armstrong to become Vickers Armstrongs. The Elswick works along Scotswood Road was three miles long, and during World War II produced 2000 Vickers Valentine tanks, 33,000 guns 23,000 aircraft undercarriages and parts for the Spitfire and the Dam Buster’s Bouncing Bomb. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers-Armstrongs In 1960, the aircraft interests were merged to form the British Aircraft Corporation, the submarine operation was closed and the Vickers brand was dropped. Other parts were nationalised and became part of British Aerospace and later BAE systems. The Challenger Two tank was made here along with other modern armament systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Land_Systems Chronicle Live 12 April 2011: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/evening-chronicle-news/2011/04/12/bleak-future-at-bae-systems-as-100-jobs-axed-72703-28504924/ BAE Systems is planning to axe more than 600 jobs and close its Newcastle factory where tanks were made for World War I. BAE said the proposal to close the old Vickers site in Newcastle at the end of 2013 followed a business review that concluded that there was no prospect of new UK armoured vehicle manufacturing work once production of the Terrier ends. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-18278139 Newcastle tank factory's role in defence industry http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-18290109

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