No furlough compensation for Alexander Dennis after conditions not met

The firm’s renewed plans to close the Falkirk facility and convert its Larbert manufacturing facility to a chassis manufacturing site were announced in March.

Chassis manufacturing is the process of building the frame of a vehicle.

The company said this would safeguard about 200 skilled manufacturing and support jobs which were previously at risk of redundancy, but that 115 posts would be lost.

A spokesman said: “We are deeply disappointed that the company has been left to absorb the full cost of the furlough scheme after expected financial support from Scottish government failed to materialise.

“Faced with difficult choices, we acted to safeguard highly skilled manufacturing jobs at Larbert and protect the future of bus manufacturing in Scotland by converting our Larbert facility to focus on chassis assembly.

“Those changes have now been implemented at considerable cost to the company, on top of the full cost of furlough.”

The spokesman said the firm had missed out on government funding for electric buses, claiming the majority of taxpayer-funded buses were being built in China instead of Scotland, which undermined the case for continuing bus manufacturing in Larbert.

“Importantly, we have retained the capability to return to full bus body assembly at Larbert should future demand support it,” he added.

“That will require a much stronger commitment from both the Scottish and UK governments if it is to happen.”