JLR to spend £400 million on engine plant in the UK: report

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the British luxury automaker owned by Tata Motors, is planning to build an engine plant in the UK at a cost of £400 million (Rs3,000 crore), The Sunday Telegraph newspaper yesterday reported, citing a source with knowledge of the company's plans.

The plant would be built at the enterprise zone i54 business park in Wolverhampton, central England, which would potentially create up to 2,000 jobs.

Since May, Tata Motors, India's largest automobile company, had been weighing options to to set up the plant either in south Wales or India, (See: Tata Motors to set up new JLR engine plant) but may have opted for the i54 business park because of its proximity to JLR's manufacturing plants in the Midlands, and the incentives and tax benefits given by the UK government for locating the plant at the enterprise zone.

The UK government is reported to have offered JLR around £10 million for the plant and the automaker is likely to make an announcement as early as today along with UK business secretary Vince Cable.

JLR, which produces its Land Rovers at plants in Solihull and Halewood in Merseyside and Jaguar models at Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham, now intends to make its own engines by combining the expertise of the group's engineers in India and the UK.

Warwickshire-based JLR buys engines from the Ford Motors factory in the UK.