Jobs joy as JLR in gear to invest £600m into West Midlands
Jaguar Land Rover is set to pump nearly £600 million of new investment into the West Midlands in moves that look set to create hundreds of fresh jobs as luxury car maker prepares for another huge acceleration in production.
More than £400 million is to be spent on expanding Jaguar production at the Castle Bromwich factory, while £150 million is being spent on doubling the size of JLR's advanced engineering and design centre at Whitley, near Coventry.
Over the next 12 months JLR says it will spend more than £3 billion on expanding its facilities in the UK and overseas and developing new cars, with 12 new products lined up.
At the same time it has just unveiled its newest car in spectacular style, with a high-wire drive over the Royal Dock in London's Canary Wharf.
The new Jaguar XF saloon was driven expert British stunt man Jim Dowdall, veteran of Hollywood movies including Bond, Bourne and Indiana Jones, who piloted the car 240 metres across a high-wire to demonstrate its lightweight aluminium bodywork.
Like its aluminium bodied XE sister car, the XF will come with Ingenium engines made at the £500m Jaguar Land Rover engine plant at Wolverhampton. The combination of lightness and the super-efficient Ingeniums mean the XF will offer frugal fuel use of more than 70mpg.
With diesel engines set to roll off the production line imminently, and production of petrol engines due to start in about a year's time, it should mean more recruitment at the Wolverhampton engine plant which will eventually employ 1,500 people.
Meanwhile, the new XF adds to a growing Jaguar line-up that will mean massive expansion of production at Castle Bromwich.
JLR has been snapping up land around the site over the last few years, including a former Showcase cinema and the neighbouring Dunlop Motorsport Tyres factory.
Now it is to build a £320 million, 74,500 sq m aluminium body shop - the largest single investment in the history of the Castle Bromwich site, which makes the XJ and F-Type in addition to the XF.
To keep up the flow of new cars to meet demand, JLR is also doubling the size of its design centre at Whitley, from 55 acres to more than 110 acres
JLR chief executive Ralf Speth said: "Jaguar Land Rover continues to demonstrate its unwavering support to the British automotive industry through sustained investments in advanced research, technology and innovation.
"This investment, made here in the heartland of our UK business operations, signals the confidence we have in this region to support the creation, engineering and manufacturing of ultra-low emission, premium British products, today and in the future."
Jaguar Land Rover has more than doubled its workforce in the last five years, creating 18,000 new jobs. Some 8,000 engineers and technologists are based at its two UK engineering and design centres at Gaydon and Whitley and an advanced research centre at the University of Warwick.
It is also backing the £150 million National Automotive Innovation Centre being built at the University of Warwick.
Over the next five years the company is planning 50 major new cars and annual upgrades to existing vehicles.
