CAR ASSEMBLY PLANT

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29783, 28 March 1962, Page 10

CAR ASSEMBLY PLANT

“Negotiations Still Exploratory”

The negotiations between Standard-Triumph New Zealand, Ltd., and the Government for the purchase of the partly-completed buildings intended for the cotton mill at Nelson were still very much in the exploratory stage, said the general manager of Motor Assemblies, Ltd. (Mr A. R. Cutler) yesterday. “Even if the decision to buy the buildings in Nelson were to be made tomorrow, it would take probably 18 months to two years before workers in the assembly plant in Christchurch were affected,” Mr Cutler said. Mr Cutler was commenting on a report in “The Press" yesterday that if the negotiations w-ere successful, the company was expected to transfer its Christchurch assembly plant, which employs about 250 workers, to Nelson.

“It should be remembered that we have completed plans for a new assembly project at Hornby, and this has only been held up over the last three or four years by the uneven level of import licences fcr knocked-dcwn cars,” Mr Cutler said. “In the event of the Nelson project proving a more central and therefore economic proposition it could only be expected that the directors would take advantage of it”