JCB announces £150m investment and creates 2,500 jobs

It includes a new purpose-built 350,000 sq ft factory for JCB Cab Systems in Beamhurst, near Uttoxeter, which will replace the current factory in Rugeley.

It will also enable JCB to bring to the UK production of cabs currently made by companies in Europe.

Chancellor George Osborne, was today visiting JCB's backhoe loader factory in Rocester, where he was told about the five-year investment by chairman Lord Bamford.

The Staffordshire-based digger maker says it will in turn add a further 7,500 jobs in the UK supply chain and Lord Bamford said JCB was actively looking for more UK component makers to supply its factories.

He said the company expected the entire 400-strong workforce at the Rugeley cab-making plant would relocate to the new site at Beamhurst when it was built, in around two years time. The company would also provide transport to help staff get to the new factory.

He said the plant had outgrown its site at Rugeley but attempts by both JCB and Cannock Chase Council to find an alternative site in the town had been unsuccessful. As a result it had chosen to build at Beamhurst, around 15 miles away.

Mr Osborne, said: "Today's investment by JCB is a further sign that our long term economic plan is working. It will not only create 2,500 jobs at JCB, but support thousands more through suppliers in Staffordshire and beyond. The Government's extra investment in improving the A50 in Staffordshire shows the link between improved infrastructure and a strong economy.

"I want Britain to be a country where companies want to invest and create jobs, as JCB is doing today. We will only do that by working through our long term economic plan to secure a responsible recovery for all parts of the country."

Mr Osborne said the UK must recapture the "pioneering spirit" of the industrial revolution if it is to secure firm long-term growth out of the fledgling recovery. The Chancellor said it was crucial the mistakes of the recent past – with over-reliance on particular sectors and regions – were not repeated.

He said manufacturing had halved as a share of the UK economy under the last government and it was crucial that Britain had "one of the most competitive tax systems in the world" to attract jobs and investment back into the country.

Under JCB's plans, jobs will be returning from France and Belgium, with Mr Osborne pointing to that example as proof the Government's strategy was working, together with recent announcements of new investment from China.