WITH election fever in full swing, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling and the Government’s Chief Whip Gavin Williamson stopped off at a Kingswinford sports car manufacturing firm which is leading the way in trialling new driverless vehicles.

The minister and Mr Williamson, who represents nearby South Staffordshire, were taken for a ride in a new autonomous vehicle – hot off the production line at Westfield Sportscars Ltd which is based on the Gibbons Industrial Estate.

Able to reach speeds of up to 30mph – the pod-like vehicle is on course to replace the existing London Heathrow pods, ferrying airport passengers between sites, and the company just received an initial purchase order to supply the autonomous vehicles to South Korea as part of a £30million contract.

Family-run Westfield, which has launched a new Westfield Autonomous Vehicles division, is also pioneering driverless GTM sports cars which are soon to be trialled on the new A6 dual carriageway being built between Stockton railway station and Manchester Airport.

Gavin Williamson described the work going on at Westfield as “immensely exciting” and added: “It’s wonderful to see the investment and technology that’s happening here on our doorstep and leading the world.”

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said: “It’s really exciting, this is a really an area of technology that’s got huge potential. You can see how these cars could operate in a busy city centre area to take congestion off the roads. "It’s got huge potential to be a new kind of transport in cities.

"It’s not a bus, a train, a car or a tram – it’s something else. It’s got the flexibility to do a whole variety of different things.”

The big-name ministerial visit on Friday morning (April 28) was the second in Dudley South since the snap General Election was called.

Dudley News:

Prime Minister Theresa May kicked off campaigning last Saturday with a stop-off in Netherton where she met with Mike Wood – Dudley South’s MP since 2015 – who has backed Westfield’s bid to export its revolutionary autonomous pods to South Korea where they will be used to transport people on a high-tech island resort.

Mr Wood said: “This is a really exciting project that we wanted the Secretary of State to see. Westfield Sportscars is one of the firms we’re particularly proud of having here in Dudley South.

“I was supporting the South Korean contract that’s now in place – we want to see this in every part of the world.”

Julian Turner, Westfield’s CEO, said it was “brilliant” to be able to showcase the autonomous vehicle projects to the political heavyweights and he added: “There’s a lot of interest in what we’re doing. We’re really passionate about what we do. It’s our employees and the local supply chain that’s helped us to do this.”