DESPITE the best efforts of the Government, and Chancellor Gordon Brown in particular, Vauxhall may still go ahead with closure plans for its last UK factory in Ellesmere Port.

Announcing 900 job losses last week, officials warned that unless new economies could be made, the future looked bleak.

Ellesmere Port remains the most expensive General Motors manufacturing facility in Europe - not a good position to be in when there are too many factories making too few cars.

It costs £136 more to make an Astra in the UK than it does to bolt together the same vehicle in Belgium or Germany.

Mr Brown said the Government would do "everything in our power" to persuade General Motors to keep faith with Ellesmere Port.

In reality, that's unlikely to be enough. EU competition rules mean any Government financial assistance is unlikely to be more than a few million.

Reports last week suggested the grant could range from £5m to £15m - peanuts to a global conglomerate like GM. Especially one losing hundreds of millions.

The decision on where to make the next Astra is expected early next year, a review that will lead to the decision starts in June.

The Chancellor believes that if it goes Britain's way, the next Astra contract would secure the future of Ellesmere Port for "20 years to come".

Sadly, he was being hopelessly optimistic.

Even if Vauxhall's continued manufacturing presence in its home market is deemed important enough by GM bosses to spare Ellesmere Port this time around, it may only be delaying the inevitable.

The factory produces a single model (albeit a very popular one) in a world where most modern car plants now make two or more vehicles.

Its future will always be up for debate every five or six years as each model it makes reaches the end of its life.

The same thing happened to the Peugeot plant in Coventry. It currently makes the 206, but when it lost the right to make the 207, closure was the net result.

The pressure on a single model car plant in the 21st Century is unrelenting.

Nissan's factory in Sunderland has two model lines - but clever asset management allows the company to make four different vehicles on them.

That flexibility makes it the largest car producer in the UK and Europe's most productive plant.

Sadly, the factory at Ellesmere Port doesn't have that ability.

General Motors reckons it only needs four of the five European factories currently bidding to build the next generation Astra.

Jonathan Browning, Vauxhall's chairman, was just being realistic when he said that 900 redundancies last week were "a significant step - but not a sufficient step".

More ominously, he warned: "Our preference is to keep a manufacturing operation in the UK. But it has to be competitive.

"I wouldn't describe it as a crisis but the challenges will increase unless we drive benchmark productivity levels into the UK.

"If the UK can't achieve them, then the future is less than rosy."

The point he was making is clear - the clock is running and time isn't on Vauxhall's side.

For the thousands of workers who depend on Ellesmere Port for their livelihood, the stakes couldn't be higher.