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. Severn Trent is expected to have to pay compensation to JLR as a result of the shutdown. Severn Trent earlier apologised to people in the Birmingham area who experienced shortages while it dealt with a 4,000% increase in the number of burst pipes.

Source: The Guardian March 05, 2018 17:44 UTC