JLR invests £600m in West Midlands sites

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Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed a £600 million investment in three sites in the West Midlands – Castle Bromwich Advanced Manufacturing Plant, Whitley Advanced Design and Development Centre and the National Automotive Innovation Centre.

The largest single investment has been made at the Castle Bromwich plant, where more than £400m has been spent in new and upgraded facilities to support the introduction of the Jaguar XF.

JLR CEO Dr Ralf Speth said: "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."

Among the most notable investments at the Castle Bromwich site is a £320m aluminium body shop, the largest single investment in the history of the site.

£16m has been spent on a new blanker line which will allow the plant to turn coils of aluminium into 'blank sheets' that will be pressed into body panels and parts on a new Aida £50m press line which is currently under construction. This line will feed in to the new £320m body shop, capable of switching between Jaguar's entire model range mid-production. Finally, £30m has been invested in significantly upgrading the trim and final assembly hall.

JLR has also confirmed plans to double the operational footprint of its Advanced Design and Engineering Centre in Whitley, Coventry. This investment will house product development engineers and will support the company's creation of high technology, ultra- low emission vehicles.

The firm is also investing in the £150m National Automotive Innovation Centre (NAIC) which will open in Spring 2017, providing a technology hub for JLR's advanced research team and collaborative partners from the supply chain and academia.