How Swindon became Britain’s drone hub
In July 2021, the Honda factory in Swindon closed after 36 years. Three thousand jobs were lost. One young apprentice at the plant, which produced 160,000 vehicles a year, said it was ‘like a rug had been pulled out from underneath us’. Another long-serving employee added: ‘I’d planned on staying there for the rest of my career.’ Here was a familiar tale of industrial decline in Britain. This Wiltshire town, where in 1843 Isambard Kingdom Brunel opened a locomotive works for Great Western Railway, and where Spitfire fighter planes were manufactured during the second world war, was now seemingly closed for business. The high street reflects this. Boarded-up shop fronts are punctuated by fast-food chains, vape emporiums and bookmakers; 19.
