HONDA has said its Swindon plant is in its strongest ever position, despite the company's boss saying there would be no future investment in Britain.

Takeo Fukui, the president of the Japanese carmaker, said no more money would go into the Swindon plant because Britain refused to join the euro.

But a spokesman for the South Marston factory has said there is no danger of the plant being closed down.

He said business is booming and that staff in Swindon would be sharing their skills with staff at the company's base in Turkey.

Last month Honda announced plans to increase its Swindon workforce from 4,200 to 4,900 and recently revealed it was looking to recruit a further 100 workers to take it through the 5,000 employee mark.

Paul Ormond, a spokesman for Honda UK, said: "The future of the Honda plant in Swindon has never looked stronger.

"We have just recruited 700 additional people and we will be moving to four production shifts.

"That will take us up to maximum capacity and we hope to be making 250,000 cars a year by October."

Mr Fukui said future European investment would go to Turkey rather than South Marston, but in Swindon the firm said it would be developing in other ways.

Staff from the plant, which is the only one in Europe to make Civic cars, could be used to teach the workers in other countries their engineering skills.

"The Swindon plant has come of age.

"In the early years people from here would go out to Japan to see how things were done," said Mr Ormond.

"They are now training engineers in Swindon who will be able to teach people at the plant in Turkey.

"The plant in Turkey builds around 50,000 cars a year.

"We are not competing but complementing each other. It is actually a good news story.

"There is a limit to growth in Swindon, so we are growing into Eastern Europe.

"The total area is something like 67 acres.

"We couldn't physically build any more on there.

"What Mr Fukui was saying is going forwards we couldn't do a great deal more in Swindon because of the limitations on the site.

"But that does not mean that recent investment to hire more staff will be undone.

"There is no danger of the plant being closed down. We have just recruited 700 new people and will be moving up to 250,000 cars a year, from 190,000 in 2006."

Commenting on past investment at the Swindon plant, Mr Fukui said: "It was a mistake.

"Our intention is to bring operations at Swindon up to full capacity and have no plans to expand, though we may change our mind if Britain were to join the euro."

Earlier this month, Honda said it would work to become more environmentally friendly, by banning waste from South Marston going to landfill and by introducing greener hybrid cars.