Water shortages prompt JLR and Cadbury to halt production

Two of the West Midlands’ largest manufacturers were forced to halt production to conserve water supplies after the rapid thaw caused major repair headaches for water company Severn Trent.

Jaguar Land Rover and Cadbury both agreed to stop production yesterday in order to conserve supplies for emergency services.

JLR sent home two shifts at its Land Rover plant in Solihull, while the Bournville confectioner also stopped its production line so supplies could be preserved.

Severn Trent worked through the night to repair burst pipes caused by the temperature fluctuations.

It handed out bottled water supplies to people whose supplies had been cut off.

The company said all supplies had been restored overnight although there could be pressure problems until the network was back to normal.

Severn Trent said in a statement: “Over the last few days we’ve had extra teams working around the clock, which means we’ve managed to fix a large number of burst water pipes in the Birmingham area and restore water supplies.

“We even worked with a handful of businesses that use a lot of water, such as JLR and Cadbury, to limit their usage during yesterday afternoon and evening. This allowed us to keep water supply on for our household customers and our vulnerable customers including hospitals in the area like the Queen Elizabeth, City and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

“Thank you to those companies for their support and we were able to put supply back on for those businesses last night.”

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