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Jaguar Land Rover to Axe UK Plant’, ‘Jaguar to wind down plant’ and ‘Jaguar Land Rover to close factory’ – those were just three of the many similar headlines that followed JLR’s announcement of its new business plan on 24 September. Read in isolation, you’d have thought that the end was nigh for the two brands, but the other side of the story is very diff erent indeed. Yes, Jaguar Land Rover (and particularly Land Rover) has seen sales suff er in the last 12 months, as have all manufacturers of luxury cars, and the majority of car manufacturers full stop come to that. Yes, JLR has admitted that the result of the economic slowdown has exposed “fundamental weaknesses in the structure of the business” and, yes, it will close one of its West Midlands plants by the middle of the next decade. But the essential part of the story behind the new business plan is one of expansion, not contraction. While Jaguar’s Castle Bromwich or Land Rover’s Solihull plant will close (and the process of deciding which has yet to begin), the reason is that either one of those plants – in conjunction with Halewood, of course – is said to be capable of handling both marques’ production lines. Clearly, if one West Midlands plant can do the job of two, it makes little sense to keep both open especially if, as JLR has stated, there will be no compulsory redundancies.