JLR production resumes after water shortage
Water supply has returned to Jaguar Land Rover’s plant in Birmingham after it had to stop production due to a lack of water.
JLR stopped production at its Solihull plant in Birmingham, which employs 10,000 people, and had planned to close the Castle Bromwich site, which employs 3,000, from this morning.
However, a spokesman for water company Severn Trent said that supply had been restored and JLR could use water ‘as normal’.
Severn Trent added, ‘In the last 24 hours we have seen an increase in burst pipe alarms of nearly 4,000% caused by the big thaw. We’ve therefore had extra teams out on the ground working round the clock to mend the damaged pipes and this has helped to keep customers on supply. We’ve also been ramping up production at our treatment works and using our tankers to support local hospitals.
‘It is our normal procedure to work proactively with a handful of large businesses who use a lot of water to manage their usage when we need to prioritise customer supplies. It enables us to make sure we have enough water for households and vulnerable customers including hospitals and care homes. We’d like to thank the few businesses we’ve been working with over the past couple of days for all of their help.’
