Ford has closed its Transit factory in Southampton and moved production to Turkey.

The Swaythling factory has produced over two million Transit vans over a 40 year period.

The closure was announced last year in an attempt to save on costs and has resulted in the loss of 531 jobs. However, Ford has said all workers have taken voluntary redundancy, early retirement or have been redeployed.

Some of those staff will now be working at a new £12 million Ford vehicle distribution centre at Southampton docks and a vehicle refurbishment plant which will operate from the Swaythling site.

Ford will also be closing its stamping and tooling facility at Dagenham which is expected to result in the loss of over 700 jobs.