Much good news has come out of the BMW car plant in Cowley over the last week. The plant will be building two new Mini models from next year, and planning has begun for Cowley to accept the next generation of the Mini in 2013.

It is great news for the near 4,000 people who work at the plant. The last two years have been a difficult period, with agency workers laid off and production suspended for a period as a result of the recession.

BMW workers can now look ahead positively to a good many years of work at Cowley.

It is also good news for Oxford and Oxfordshire. It seems that we will at the very least maintain this significant element of manufacturing industry here, with all that means for related businesses and support industries.

The next few years will be a difficult period as reports elsewhere in this newspaper suggest.

There will be an unprecedented squeeze on public expenditure that is expected to hit every single one of us in the pocket.

It could also impact on many of the new building and transport projects we were expecting to see over the next few years.

While the public sector is retracting, it is important that the private sector not only maintains its strength but also grows to fill in the gaps.

Oxfordshire, with its universities, and large health sector, is heavily reliant on the public sector. More than ever before, we need companies like BMW to prosper.