Satellite pictures reveal transformation of Wolverhampton's i54 site

Stretching from the M54 motorway to Wobaston Road, the vast plant now extends to around two million sq ft – equivalent to nearly 30 football pitches – and represents an investment by the car maker of £1 billion over the last five years.

The original target of employing around 1,400 people at the car plant will be reached this year, but the expansion of the factory – doubling its size – will add hundreds to that total.

It represents the biggest industrial development ever seen in the Black Country, straddling the border of Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire, and has transformed the brownfield wasteland into the thriving i54 business park, attracting a string of companies to build landmark new headquarters there.

Plans for the 220 acre site were first unveiled by the former regional development agency in 2003 but progress on the £64m project was painfully slow.

It was not until 2009 that a company moved in, when aerospace manufacturer Moog decided to quit its wartime factory on Wobaston Road and move over the road to a brand new factory.

By this time i54 had passed into the hands of Wolverhampton Council, South Staffordshire Council and Staffordshire County Council.

With just one firm on the site questions were being asked about the cost when reports surfaced that Jaguar Land Rover was looking for a site to build a new engine factory.

It came down to a run-off between South Wales and Wolverhampton, and in April 2011 Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and Business Secretary Vince Cable joined JLR in announcing i54 would be the site for an 800,000 sq ft £355 million factory creating up to 750 jobs.

Work got under way in April 2012 on clearing and levelling the site. By January 2013 the steelwork was up, despite often appalling winter weather.

Concrete was barely dry when, in March, JLR revealed revised plans, almost doubling the proposed workforce to 1,400 and extending the factory to more than one million sq ft. It took the investment price tag to £550 million.

In October 2014 the site was officially opened by Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

By the beginning of 2015 diesel engines were running off the production line.

In November 2015 the company confirmed that it would be spending another £450m to double the size of the factory again, to 2.1m sq ft and taking total investment to £1bn.

By last summer construction was well under way and, as the latest images show, the shell is almost complete.

Work will then begin on installing manufacturing equipment, but details of engines produced are still wrapped in secrecy.