The first of 500 new employees have started work at Swindon, as Honda plans to double UK production in 2012. Honda has added a second shift in order to take British production up to 180,000 per year with 3,500 workers. Last year Honda decided that the only way to deal with the high value of the Japanese yen was to increase production outside Japan. The UK is Honda’s main European production centre, and so will take more responsibility for meeting overall European demand.