Council Leader, Cllr Toby Savage, said: “My thoughts go out to Airbus employees, the Filton base is located in South Gloucestershire and many of the staff live in the area so this will undoubtedly have an impact locally. We are hopeful that the UK redundancies can be achieved through voluntary redundancies and/or early retirements where possible.
“Our economic development team will work closely with Airbus and their employees, along with other elements of the supply chain, to provide support at this time and as the market recovers. Our area is a key part of the R&D programme designing the planes of tomorrow and is home to globally important projects such as Airbus’ ‘Wing of the Future’ programme and we will do all that we can to ensure that the aerospace sector is supported to deliver a greener resilient future.
“A taskforce has been set up to drive the West of England’s (WoE) economic recovery, which is a partnership between the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), the region’s councils, the Local Enterprise Partnership, business and universities, and one of the main themes is around aerospace and advanced engineering. Working alongside WECA and Airbus we will continue to lobby for support on programmes like the Brunel Challenge to ensure that during these difficult times the specialist skills we have developed in this area are retained ready for the future.”
