Nissan selects Sunderland for £100M investment

Japanese car manufacturer Nissan is investing £100M in its Sunderland plant to build the new generation of its Juke model.

The manufacturing plant in Sunderland employs 6,700 directly and also makes the Qashqai, Note and electric Leaf models. The plant is responsible for producing over 500,000 cars per year, making it the largest car plant in the UK, according to Nissan.

The investment will secure thousands of jobs, safeguarding the Nissan plant’s long term future and is seen as an endorsement of the quality of the workforce at the Sunderland plant.

Nissan Europe Chairman, Paul Willcox said: “”This announcement also gives security to our Sunderland plant beyond 2020, which the team has earned through many years of hard work and their ability to continually raise the bar on quality.”

Nissan’s UK design and engineering teams in Paddington, London, and Cranfield, Bedfordshire, will also play a key part in the development of this new model.

Chancellor George Osborne, visiting the plant in Sunderland today, said: “It’s fantastic news that Nissan will be building their new car here in Sunderland and securing valuable jobs for thousands working people in the area.

“Our ambitious plans to build the Northern Powerhouse means building on the area’s strengths – including manufacturing – and this announcement is an important sign of Britain being chosen as a global leader in car production.”

Earlier this year, the government provided £1.4M funding, matched by Nissan, to train over 1,700 employees at the North East plant, helping them to secure new future contracts.

Nissan employs nearly 8,000 people in its design, engineering and manufacturing UK operations, supporting an additional 27,000 jobs in the UK supply chain and 3,900 in dealerships.

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