The Whitley plant, situated in

Whitley, Coventry Whitley is a suburb of southern Coventry in the West Midlands of England and a major centre of the British automotive corporation Jaguar Land Rover. The name Whitley is said to mean "from the white meadow". St James' Parish Church From 193 ...

, United Kingdom, is the headquarters and one of the engineering centres of

Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC is the holding company of Jaguar Land Rover Limited (also known as JLR), and is a British multinational automobile manufacturer which produces luxury vehicles and sport utility vehicles. Jaguar Land Rover is a ...

. The facility is a fully integrated design, research and development centre and is used for the design and development of Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles.

History

The site now occupied by the Whitley plant was originally an

aerodrome An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publi ...

, built during the First World War. In the early 1920s the site and its associated buildings were bought by Sir W.G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Co. Ltd. From 1923 until the end of the Second World War several aircraft types, including the

Armstrong Whitworth Siskin The Armstrong Whitworth Siskin was a biplane single-seat fighter aircraft developed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. It was also the first all-metal fighter to be operated by the Royal Air Force (RA ...

and the

Hawker Hart The Hawker Hart is a British two-seater biplane light bomber aircraft that saw service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed during the 1920s by Sydney Camm and manufactured by Hawker Aircraft. The Hart was a prominent British aircra ...

biplanes and the

Armstrong Whitworth Whitley The Armstrong Whitworth A.W.38 Whitley was a British medium bomber aircraft of the 1930s. It was one of three twin-engined, front line medium bomber types that were in service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) at the outbreak of the Second World ...

bomber were built at the site. After the Second World War, Armstrong Whitworth concentrated its guided missile work at the plant, including the development of the Seaslug surface-to-air missile. In 1968

Hawker Siddeley Dynamics Hawker or Hawkers may refer to: Places *Hawker, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra *Hawker, South Australia, a town *Division of Hawker, an Electoral Division in South Australia *Hawker Island, Princess Elizabeth Land, Antarctica ...

, who had by then absorbed the Armstrong Whitworth company, closed the site with the loss of 2,260 jobs. Work being carried out at the site on the Nike-Ajax and Sea Dart missiles was transferred to Hawker Siddeley Dynamics plants in Hatfield,

Cheadle Hulme Cheadle Hulme () is a suburb in the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England,. Historically in Cheshire, it is south-west of Stockport and south-east of Manchester. It lies in the Ladybrook Valley, on the Cheshire Pla ...

and Lostock. Jaguar sign 19o06

The

Rootes Group The Rootes Group or Rootes Motors Limited was a British automobile manufacturer and, separately, a major motor distributors and dealers business. Run from London's West End, the manufacturer was based in the Midlands and the distribution and de ...

, by then owned by

Chrysler Europe Chrysler Europe was the American automotive company Chrysler's operations in Europe from 1967 through 1978. It was formed from the merger of the French Simca, British Rootes and Spanish Barreiros companies. In 1978, Chrysler divested these ...

, purchased the 187-acre site from Hawker Siddeley Dynamics in 1969 for the purpose of centralising all its design and engineering teams onto one site. From 1970 Rootes used the site for the design of all their new trucks and cars. In 1978 Chrysler sold its European operations to

PSA Group The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Société Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroën from 1991 to 2016) was a French multinational automotive manufacturing company which produced automobiles ...

, and the Whitley plant was taken over by Peugeot-Talbot. By 1985 Peugeot had moved all its design and development activities to Paris Hawtal Whiting design group used it for a short period then the newly privatised

Jaguar Cars Jaguar (, ) is the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar car ...

bought the plant and following a refurbishment, established its engineering centre there in 1987. In 2005 Jaguar Cars moved its headquarters to join its engineering centre at the Whitley site, after scaling down its operations at its

Browns Lane plant The Browns Lane plant in Coventry, England was built as a Second World War shadow factory run by The Daimler Company Limited. In 1951 it was leased by Jaguar Cars and remained the company's home until 2005. It was the site of all Jaguar pr ...

Environment

The Whitley plant is surrounded by green land, and a lake, woods and the

River Sowe The River Sowe is a river in Warwickshire and West Midlands, England. It is a tributary of the River Avon, and flows into it just south of Stoneleigh about 5 miles (8 km) south of Coventry. It is about long. The Sowe rises in Bedwo ...

are nearby. Some of the former playing fields of Whitley Abbey Comprehensive School were sold by the council to Ford, who owned Jaguar at the time. A major expansion of the Whitley facility and the building of a new industrial estate in the surrounding green fields and woods is a controversial local issue. The expansion would consume approximately 740 acres of greenbelt land, and Roxhill Developers, which is behind the project, is ultimately controlled by an

offshore company The term "offshore company" or “offshore corporation” is used in at least two distinct and different ways. An offshore company may be a reference to: * a company, group or sometimes a division thereof, which engages in offshoring business pr ...

domiciled in the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territory—the largest by population in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located to the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitley Plant 1923 establishments in England Armstrong Whitworth Automotive industry in the United Kingdom Buildings and structures in Coventry Engineering research institutes Jaguar Land Rover Motor vehicle assembly plants in the United Kingdom Research institutes in the West Midlands (county)

History

Environment

See also

References