15th October 2009

PM visits PACCAR's Leyland Trucks plant

  Prime Minister Gordon Brown today (Thursday 15 October) paid a visit to Leyland Trucks, the UK assembly plant of PACCAR Inc., in Lancashire.

  During the one hour visit, on which he was accompanied by Andrea Paver, Managing Director of Leyland Trucks, he was able to talk with a number of employees in the assembly areas and to a group of Leyland apprentices.

  The Leyland Trucks assembly plant is the only remaining volume truck manufacturing facility in the UK and is acknowledged as the most efficient truck plant in Europe. It produces the full range of award winning DAF branded trucks from the LF light-medium models to the award-winning CF and XF heavyweight models. The plant also has a dedicated line for the assembly of fully-bodied vehicles.

  Speaking of the visit Andrea Paver said: “The Prime Minister showed a keen interest in our assembly operations and said that he was impressed by the commitment of our workforce to maintaining high levels of quality and efficiency. He was particularly pleased to meet a number of our younger employees undergoing apprenticeships or participating in our graduate schemes.

  During the tour I was able to show him examples of some of the considerable investment made by PACCAR in the plant, including our unique robotic chassis paint plant and one of the DAF Hybrid vehicles, currently in field trials. We really appreciate the time the Prime Minister took to visit Leyland and understand more about the commercial vehicle business as well as meet many of our great employees.”