Prime Minister praises JLR during visit to new engine plant

Prime Minister David Cameron today praised Jaguar Land Rover as he made a surprise visit to the firm’s brand new £500 million engine production facility in Wolverhampton.

The PM flew in to join a special contingent of MPs, local government officials and the press on an early preview tour of the in-construction new plant, just six weeks after the JLR team themselves moved in.

Apparently, an insider told MSN Cars, the PM had personally requested to visit the plant – and he wasn’t originally invited!

“We sent an invite to MP Gavin Williamson to Downing Street,” revealed our source. “When the PM heard about it, he decided to come along too. We’re all over the moon!”

Richard Aucock | Motoring Research

During an impromptu and unscripted speech to the small gathering, Cameron congratulated Jaguar Land Rover for its investment in the new factory. “We all back and support what you are doing,” he said.

More than 2,000 people have been involved in building the facility

Cameron showed impressive knowledge of the details: the factory will produce an engine every 36 seconds, he said, and is the size of 14 football pitches.

“But actually, the figures only tell part of the story,” he continued. “I think what you’re doing here epitomises what we need to happen to the British economy.

“In the past, too much growth has been focused on the south, too much growth focused on services, not enough made of exports. Everything you are doing here is what we want to see. Here we are in the Midlands, what was once the workshop of the world, and you’re putting people back into manufacturing jobs.”

Jaguar Land Rover deserves congratulations, he said, “for the confidence shown in local people by putting this massive investment into the heart of the country”.

Clearly, the Palace of Westminster has recognised the significance of JLR’s investment at Wolverhampton – particularly as, of the 1,400 new jobs created by the plant, 95% of them will be to people not currently working for JLR.

Even construction of the plant has created jobs; already, more than 2,000 people have been involved in building the facility, into which JLR officially moved on 2 January.

Since then, millions of pounds’ worth of machinery continues to be delivered and installed. Indeed, as MSN Cars visited, around £3 million in machinery was sitting in the delivery area waiting to be fitted, having arrived that very morning.

JLR executive director Mike Wright said the construction of the new plant will mean the firm is “designing and engineering its own engines for the first time in many years”.

The high-tech lower displacement engine facility, which will make all-aluminium four-cylinder turbo petrol and diesel units, is the next stepping stone in JLR’s strategy to grow globally.

“It is the most flexible and modular engine plant ever. In combination with our Solihull, Halewood and Castle Bromwich [vehicle] plants, it provides the biggest manufacturing uplift in the UK in a generation.”

By Richard Aucock, contributor, MSN Cars