1979

At 3.30 p.m., on Friday afternoon, 30th November 1979, all employees in the Meccano Factory at Binns Road, Liverpool, were called to assemblies in various departments to hear a company statement. Most of the Directors of Meccano Limited were in London at the time, attending a crucial meeting of the Airfix Group. Senior executives at the Liverpool plant, passed on the bad news to the assembled workforce. The stark and unpalatable fact was that the Meccano Company had run out of cash to pay its bills, and there was no more coming from the banks, to whom the Company was now in debt of several million pounds.

Workers were told that from close of business on that day, they were all redundant and that the Liverpool Factory was closed forthwith. It was the virtual end of Meccano Limited, Liverpool. Sufficient workers remained inside the factory to organize a sit-in aimed at preventing permanent closure of the premises. It was a lost cause. As an unprofitable section of the Airfix Group, there was no way that it could be sustained. After three months of occupation, the sit-in was called off by the workers, and the once famous Binns Road Meccano Factory was reduced to rubble under the bulldozers.

In France, Meccano France SA of 1971 became Miro-Meccano and continued its production at the plant in Calais.