Jaguar Land Rover announces big move amid controversial changes

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) has announced a major change to the running of its Halewood site at a time when workers are concerned about a new way of working at the Merseyside plant.

Last week the ECHO revealed workers at the Halewood factory fear losing out on around £400 per week in payments as the car manufacturing giant looks to move workers from a pattern of two shifts per day to just one shift in April.

While base salaries will not change under the new arrangements, workers will lose the shift premiums they are paid when working on later, unsociable shifts. The business says it is making the changes to enable the ongoing transformation of the site following the announcement of a £500m investment to prepare it for the production of electric vehicles.

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The controversial announcement was made to staff by Halewood plant boss Trevor Leeks. But Mr Leeks and JLR were criticised by the Unite union, who said the manner in which this communication was handled was "both unacceptable and deeply frustrating". The company has since apologised for this.

But now it has emerged that shortly after announcing the major change for workers, Mr Leeks is moving on from his role as operations director at Halewood. An announcement to staff confirmed that Mr Leeks has now been confirmed as operations director for JLR's plant in Solihull.

The notice, from Luis Vara, the company's director of global manufacturing praised Mr Leeks for "leading the transformation of Halewood to become JLR's first all-electric vehicle manufacturing facility." Mr Vara confirmed that following the move of Mr Leeks, Brian Stone, who currently runs the company's operations in China will take on the Halewood plant as well as JLR's Brazil factory.

Mr Stone began his career as an apprentice at Halewood and held various engineering and leadership positions at the Merseyside plant before moving to China, where he has been since 2016.

Responding to earlier criticism about the shift changes, a JLR spokesperson said: “As part of normal business practice, we regularly review our production schedules and adapt shift patterns.

"JLR is investing £500m to transform Halewood and these changes will enable the ongoing electrification of the facility whilst continuing production of ICE vehicles. We have apologised to colleagues for a communication timing error in relation to proposed shift changes as part of this transformation and remain committed to continued discussions with the Trade Union."