Richard Holden, MP for North West Durham, was hosted by Elddis at their site in Consett.
Elddis are manufacturers of award-winning caravans and motorhomes – they have won the North East Business Award. They offer an enormous range of models and use some of the most advanced technology in the industry – they are leaders in innovation. Their site in Delves Lane is their manufacturing site. They work closely in partnership with Derwentside College (read about Richard’s visit to the college here) and established Elddis Academy in 2018, with has led to 80 people being employed by Erwin Hymer Group UK (Elddis is a part of this group). Students are taught about business, manufacturing and distribution. Staff at Elddis regularly visit Derwentside College to talk to and mentor students. Students are able to visit the site and tour the factory.
Richard met with staff at Elddis and had a look around the manufacturing site. In particular, they talked about Motorhomes Tax. In September 2019, Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) and road tax on new motorhomes faced increases of about 705%. This was due to EU Regulation 2018/1832, which states that motorhomes were to be classed and therefore taxed differently. People that were buying a new motorhome suddenly had to pay about £5000 in tax in just five years of ownership, compared to a previous tax of about £1200. As a result of this, motorhomes sales around the country dropped around 10%, although this figure was higher up in North West Durham. Elddis have seen sales drop and, as a result of this, manufacturing has dropped, and staff face redundancy. Richard promised to start a campaign to get this reversed and will be speaking to local and national press, local stakeholders and colleagues in Parliament about this.
Commenting, Richard said ‘It was great to visit Elddis, who do so much locally for the economy and the community. They’re a fantastic business and work alongside educational facilities up in North West Durham to ensure that they are giving back to the community and that young people have opportunities to work for them and find out more about what they do. I’m going to be campaigning to get the Motorhomes Tax reversed and look forward to working closely with Elddis on this issue. I don’t want to see their business struggle or staff face redundancies and will be doing everything I can to help them. I really look forward to visiting again.’
Richard’s campaign was eventually successful, with the Chancellor confirming in the Spring Budget that the tax would be scrapped – you can read about this here.
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