Leyland leaves past behind to show UK could become more productive

The truck maker has contributed to startling growth in production efficiency across one part of the north-west

With the whirring shriek of a factory siren, the afternoon break at Leyland Trucks comes to an abrupt end on an unusually hot spring day in Lancashire.

Once part of the sprawling British Leyland automotive empire that epitomised Britain’s industrial decline in the 1970s – a model of corporate failure, disrupted by strikes and uncompetitive on the world stage – the old truck division in the town of the same name, a handful of miles from Preston, now contributes to the strongest growth in economic efficiency in the country.

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