Main water supply to Tata Motors’ Jaguar Land Rover Solihull factory (and the Cadbury chocolate factory in Bournville) has been restored after burst pipes caused a shortage.
Utility Severn Trent told local media water supply returned to the businesses which had been shuttered on Monday (6 March).
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Following a freezing weekend, after snowstorms dubbed the ‘beast from the east’ and Storm Emma converged over England, temperatures of up to negative double digits Celsius caused pipes to burst, with more than 20,000 properties in London and the south east disrupted over 48 hours.
The also affected water suppliers in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, as well as the North West, Yorkshire, the South West and the Midlands – the affected Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) plants are based in the east and south west of Birmingham respectively.
JLR had stopped Solihull production – largely Land Rover products made by 10,000 people – and had planned to close the Castle Bromwich Jaguar (and former Pressed Steel) site, which employs 3,000, from this morning (6 March) due to the shortage.
A Severn Trent spokesman told Sky News last night supply had been restored and the two factories could now “use their water as normal”.
The utility 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.”
