Peugeot-Citroën factory in VillaverdeCentro de Madrid de PSA Peugeot Citroën en Villaverde

The Peugeot-Citroën center in Villaverde, formerly Barreiros, a pioneer in the Spanish vehicle industry and a great contributor to the Spanish economy, is a human-made landscape in itself. As the last big standing industry in Villaverde, the center has more than 60 years of activity, and up until the present has produced more than 3 million vehicles, the majority of which were destined for export.
The surrounding infrastructure (accessibility to M40, M30, the highway to Andalucia and the factory's own internal railway) allow for easy transit of trucks and goods to the centre of Spain and to the rest of the world. The factory values its 1.842 employees, and strives to take good care of them, providing them with transport to and from work, good medical services, safety insurances.
The recent situation of a struggling economy has greatly impacted the industry sector, and the center in Villaverde was affected as well - at the end of last year, it signed an ERTE for 1311 employees, to minimise losses caused by the lack of demand. It was not the first time this happened, as the company has signed 3 EREs since 2014.
The urbanistic situation puts even more pressure on the location of the factory, as it is now caught between the expansion of Madrid and the urgent necessity of extension that Villaverde has. Although the management of the company has declared multiple times that it has no intention of closing its activity in the South of Madrid, the factory is facing a crisis on multiple plans: economically and urbanistically.

Contributed by: Alexandra Enescu