BMW pledge of £500m safeguards 5,000 Mini jobs

By Becky Barrow for MailOnline
Updated: 03:29 EDT, 10 June 2011

Around 5,000 jobs will be protected after BMW said yesterday it will build the next generation of Minis in Britain.

Iconic: Two new versions of the Mini will be made at Cowley, Oxford

The German firm said it would invest £500m in its sites in Oxford, Swindon and Birmingham in the next three years.

Two new versions of the iconic car - the Coupe and the Roadster - will be made at its main plant in Cowley, Oxford.

David Cameron welcomed the news from BMW, which also owns Rolls-Royce, describing the Mini as one of Britain's 'great manufacturing success stories'.

All Minis are made in Britain, except the Countryman which is made in Austria. The announcement comes in the same week that Nissan said it will build a new version of its Qashqai hatchback in Sunderland, safeguarding 6,000 jobs.

Last year, nearly 220,000 Minis were made in this country, meaning it accounts for nearly a fifth of the UK's car output.

The boost for the economy came as new evidence emerged of the tough times facing millions of households struggling with soaring bills, tax rises and low pay rises.

A report from the insurer Axa found that one in four families has raided savings in recent months to stay financially afloat.

The Bank of England yesterday decided to keep the base interest rate at a historic low of 0.5% for another month. It has been at this level since March 2009.

But Ian McCafferty, of the CBI, said he expected the Bank would gradually start raising rates - possibly as soon as next month.