The designer who helped create the Mini has described the demise of manufacturing in the Midlands as a “terrible tragedy” and called on the education system to do more to promote practical engineering innovation among a new generation of designers. Dr Alex Moulton was in Birmingham to deliver a lecture at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.

Dr Moulton played a crucial role in the creation of the Mini in the 1950s (for what was then the British Motor Corporation), along with designer Sir Alec Issigonis. The rubber suspension system he designed made it possible for the Mini to be one of the smallest cars ever built. Millions came off the line at Birmingham’s Longbridge plant. The new Mini is made by BMW at the Cowley plant in Oxford.

Dr Moulton said: “It’s a terrible tragedy that we have in effect just given up on our manufacturing. The employment the new Mini gives to English workers is good, and it’s good that it’s been a success, but the tragedy is that it just isn’t a British car. What I am sad about is the fact that we in England no longer seem to have the ambition to make things ourselves. We are too keen on giving things away by just looking at the ‘bottom line’. We are far too influenced by the pressures to simply sell up and move things abroad.”

Dr Moulton, who is now 90, started his career as an apprentice in a workshop in Shrewsbury, and said he thought the option to have a more practical and work-based education at all levels would help to create more innovation in students. He said many research institutions were too focused on theoretical work, rather than linking up with business and real-world designers to get physical results. However, he believed that there was a changing attitude to design — and that the revolution in technology cause by the need to be environment-friendly would create huge opportunities: “I’m sure there’s still the desire to create and design in England. If you have the natural desire to make something, you will find a way of doing it.”