Tony Blair officially opened Ford Motor Company's advanced Diesel Centre in Dagenham this week. Ford president and chief operating officer, Sir Nick Scheele, joined the Prime Minister on a tour of the state-of-the-art facility.

Ford is investing £325m in diesel engine engineering and manufacturing at Dagenham, which remains the largest industrial centre in the Greater London region. Around 50 per cent of all cars sold in Europe by 2006 will be diesel-powered.

Sir Nick said the centre was designed to be a best-in-class engineering facility for many years.