Jaguar Land Rover and Cadbury shut plants so water firm can fix burst pipes

Thousands of staff at two Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) car plants have been sent home, while chocolate production has been halted at Cadbury’s Bourneville factory, amid water shortages in the West Midlands caused by burst water mains after the recent cold weather.

The local water company, Severn Trent, said it had asked a “handful of big businesses” to shut down factories as it tried to prioritise household supplies.

Neither JLR nor Severn Trent could say how long the shutdown would last at its Solihull and Castle Bromwich plants, which employ 14,000 people between them making models including the Range Rover, Land Rover Discovery and Jaguar F-Pace.

But even a temporary closure is likely to prove costly for JLR, given that about 450,000 vehicles a year – more than 1,200 a day – roll off the production lines at the two factories.

Mondelēz, the parent company of Cadbury, said the UK’s chocolate supplies would not be affected by the temporary shutdown at its historic Bourneville site because it had “sufficient stock available to manage through this hopefully short disruption”.

The UK’s water regulator, Ofwat, warned it would not “hesitate to intervene” if suppliers were found to have been ill-prepared for the cold weather, after thousands of homes were left without water. Severn Trent is expected to have to pay compensation to JLR as a result of the shutdown.

Water companies have blamed the situation on the rapid thaw after last week’s snow and freezing temperatures. Thames Water previously advised its customers to limit their water usage while it dealt with the aftermath of the thaw, after at least 23,800 households were left without water.

Welsh Water said unprecedented challenges had affected 4,500 homes, while Scottish Water said it had not suffered a significant problem because the thaw had been less rapid further north.

Source: theguardian