Japanese car maker Honda has announced it is to cut 800 jobs at its manufacturing plant in Swindon, UK. The Honda operation in Swindon currently employs around 3,500, but this figure is to be drastically reduced with Honda blaming weak demand across Europe.

Open sine 1992, the Swindon plant, produces the Civic, Jazz and CR-V models. Honda says it will have a 90-day consultation period on the job cuts and says it hopes to avoid compulsory redundancies.

A Honda statement said, "Sustained conditions of low demand in European markets make it necessary to realign Honda's business structure." The statement added that demand for cars in Europe had fallen by one million in the past year. The company did however go on to say that it was still committed to manufacturing in the UK and Europe in the long term.

The Swindon plants did have the capacity to build 250,000 units but produced only 166,000 cars in 2012 due to lower demand.