Following in suit with other car companies here in the UK, BMW owned Mini has closed its factory in Cowley, Oxfordshire. The plant closed on Friday evening last week. This joins other car companies, Bentley and Jaguar Land Rover which both closed their factories on the 20th March for one month. Earlier this month, Nissan closed its Sunderland based factory for a while too.

These closures are due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, which is affecting the whole world.

Mini is also closing its other factory in Europe and both the Oxford one and the Europe one will be closed for one month and are due to open up again next month.

“Due to the rapidly evolving coronavirus pandemic we have taken the difficult decision to cease production at our production sites at Oxford and Swindon as of Monday next week (23rd March) for a period of four weeks until April 17. The plans for Hams Hall [Birmingham] are under development and a subsequent announcement will be made. This decision is the culmination of a number of factors that are affecting the automotive industry at this time, namely the protection of the health and well-being of our employees, the potential for disruption to our suppliers and to a decline in global market demand.”

BMW

A spokesman from BMW said the ‘vast majority’ of workers would be paid during the closure.