In a blow to the UK car industry, French car maker PSA is to cut around 400 jobs at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant by the end of the year.

A PSA spokesman told Reuters: “Facing challenging European market conditions and a declining passenger-car market, Vauxhall needs to adjust production volumes at its Ellesmere Port facility to the current level of demand and to improve its performance, in order to protect its future.”

Vauxhall employs 4,500 people in the UK as a whole and 1,800 at the Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire. It is hoped that most of the 400 job losses will be voluntary.

PSA said that, while it is committed to the plant, current manufacturing costs there are “significantly higher” than those of its benchmark plants in France.

PSA’s chief executive, Carlos Tavares, said last month that it was “hard to decide upon the group’s strategy for Vauxhall, given the lack of clarity over the UK’s plans to leave the European Union.”