Learning centre launched at Eastleigh's Hovis factory

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 4th Sep 2006

Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne opened a new union learning centre set up at the Hovis factory of British Bakeries in Toynbee Road, Eastleigh and said that it represented how well both management and unions could work together on a common goal.

Mr Huhne is pictured here cutting the ribbon in the company of British Bakeries' Site manager Sean Conlan and local trade union learning representatives John Hiscock and Vincent Munoz Cano of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers' Union.

Mr Huhne said that he was delighted that this was the second learning centre that he had inaugurated in the borough within the last year, as lifelong learning had two important roles in the modern world.

First, adult learning allows us to update and improve our skills and knowledge long after leaving formal schooling. Britain has to compete on skills, timeliness, style and design and not on low labour costs.

Secondly, Mr Huhne said that the learning centre would give people who missed the opportunities of school a second chance later in life with key courses in numeracy, literacy, information technology and modern languages.

The new centre is expected to serve between 80 and 250 people on different courses in the first two years, and there has already been substantial interest in enrolling in courses that staff undertake in their own time.

Dignitaries who attended the launch included Frank Loveday, regional organiser, and Dorban Ippoma, national project manager of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union together with Hans Cheshire of the United Road Transport Union that represents drivers.

Mr Huhne was also given a tour of the bakery, which bakes Hovis loaves for much of the south of England and also acts as a distribution centre for the area south and west of London.