STAFF at Southampton’s Ford factory have a new boss.

John Oldham has been appointed as the new manager of the Ford Transit plant, which employs more than 600 staff He joins from Ford’s Bridgend plant in Wales, where he was engine production manager.

Mr Oldham started his Ford career as an electrician at the Bridgend plant in 1980. He subsequently held various manufacturing roles within Ford before his latest move to Southampton.

He said: “I am excited about joining the great team at Southampton and looking forward to being a part of its future. It is a real privilege to be associated with one of the world’s best known commercial vehicle brands, and to work at a plant with such a proud history.”

John, who lives with his wife and two children in west Wales, succeeds Thomas Fischer who left the company earlier in the year.

The Southampton plant builds around 30,000 Ford Transit vans a year.

The factory is now looking forward to a bright future after several years of uncertainty, following the loss of half the workforce in the downturn when the factory moved to a single shift operation.

The next generation Transit chassis cab will be built at Southampton when production of the current model finishes in 2013 and shifts to Turkey.

The factory in Wide Lane, Swaythling, first made panels for Ford vans such as the Thames before the Transit, and then from 1972 became the Transit assembly plant.

The Transit van is Ford’s third bestselling vehicle in the UK after Fiesta and Focus.