Jaguar Land Rover won’t open Castle Bromwich plant until AUGUST, as JLR grab a £560 million loan from China

Jaguar Land Rover’s Castle Bromwich Plant – currently closed due to Codid-19 lockdown – won’t reopen until August, as JLR grab £560 million loan from China.

Car manufacturing in the UK is returning to some sort of ‘New Normal’ as lockdown restrictions in the UK ease a little, but not everyonje is rushing to reopen manufacturing.

In fact, according to Sky News, Jaguar Land Rover are quite content to see their plant in Castle Browmwich – which builds Jaguars – to stay shut for another two months, with no plans to re-open until August.

The decision to keep Castle Bromwich closed probably says a lot about the state of Jaguar sales; JLR’s site in Halewood – which builds the Range Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport – is about to re-open, and JLR’s Solihull Plant – which builds the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, Range Rover Velar, Land Rover Discovery and Jaguar F-Pace – already up and running, albeit at a lower rate than normal.

JLR employs pushing on for 40,000 in the UK – half of which have been on furlough – and this decision does make you wonder if JLR are planning to cut most Jaguar production in the UK, and instead building in China where demand for Jaguars is still decent.

Talking of China, JLR has also managed to grab a £550 million credit facility from banks in China to help them ride out the current problems, after appearing to fail to get UK government support, and Jaguar production in China has been back up and running since February.

There look to be big changes at JLR on the horizon.