IT was more than three decades ago that Honda set up it’s UK manufacturing operation in Swindon.

The firm took over the huge site at South Marston on the outskirts of Swindon, once the place where the iconic Spitfire fighter and the Stirling bomber was built during the Second World War.

Within four years the first part of the complex was built and engines were being produced. By 1991 work had started on the first car plant and a year later the first Accords came off the production line.

A second plant opened in 2001, increasing capacity to 250,000 cars a year. A year later Hondas made in Swindon were being exported to North America for the first time. The plant reached its millionth car in 2003.

At its peak the firm employed almost 5,000 people at South Marston.

But in 2008 the firm announced it was cutting production of the Civic by 10 per cent. The reason it gave was "the economy is slowing in Europe and we have to adjust our production in line with sluggish demand there.”

It said the workers – 4,800 of them at the time – would not lose their jobs. But later that year it announced an associate release package where staff were given a lump sum in exchange for their resignations.

The following year, as the recession started to bite, lines were cleared and production was shut down for four months. There was more heartache for workers four years later when 800 redundancies were announced.

It was all the more shocking because it came in the wake of a multi-million pound investment programme. Ken Keir, who was the vice president of Honda Europe at the time, said it was the worst day of his working life.The firm said it had been hit by low demand in Greece, Spain and Italy and difficulty in selling the vehicles on mainland Europe.

But just five months ago Honda boss in Europe Ian Howells made a commitment to keep the plant working. “The UK forms part of our global network of manufacturing plants," he said. "So the only place we produce the vehicle we produce at Swindon is in Swindon itself. The logistics of moving a factory the size of Swindon would be huge and as far as we’re concerned, we’re right behind supporting continued production at Swindon.”