Excuse me for digging-up an old thread but this one deserves to be, as a result of re-assessment of information. As I am writing about the Slough CMD (see VINTAGE ROADSCENE magazine issue 120, and forthcoming issue 122), and GM Ltd in Bamber Bridge (will be in VRS123/124) and Cleckheaton (VRS125?) I have been re-considering the evidence as to the closure of the GM operations. I have written on another thread:
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Consolidation by movement of all Canadian vehicle cases was completed by 31st October (1945) into the Slough and Manchester dumps plus Pearson’s. The last Canadian-order vehicles assembled by Citroen’s was on 25th September and Pearson’s on 8th October 1945, whilst a further 5,971Canadian vehicles were in the three dumps. Pearson’s presumably incorporated British-order vehicles as well. A few “passenger cars” which probably meant Chevrolet C8A eight-cwt HUP CMPs, were still to be received and all of these had not been received by December 1945 [the last Canadian contract being CDLV 3619], and so the M of S arranged for uncrating and assembly in one of their plants that they were keeping going for some time: Lep Transport in Chiswick had ceased assembly in 1944, and in Goole sometime in 1945. ...
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So, where did these final vehicles go to for assembly? GM Ltd's wartime reconditioning facility was wound-down in 1945 and vacated by early June n1946. However, the other vehicle reconditioning facility that had been an assembly operation up to December 1941, Bamber Bridge, near Preston, was used until spring 1947. It is possible that they took on the MofS assembly work. However the identity is not recorded in the DND papers. I have often been puzzled as to why Bamber Bridge carried-on so long. Long enough in fact to send men down to Southampton in mid-1947 to set-up a parts disposal and demobbed (and contract) vehicle refurbishment operation. Perhaps that's the answer? In the absence of any indication as to when Leps ceased all war work, that's the best that I can come up with at the moment.