SAVE COVENTRY’S MOTORING HERITAGE
Historic Carbodies plant under threat from redevelopment plans – have your say by 3 April
Proposals to raze the former Carbodies/London Taxi Company factory to the ground in order to contruct a large housing estate are currently under consideration by Coventry’s City Council.
Calls have come for enthusiasts to weigh in on the proposal
– put forward by Planning Prospects Ltd. which already redeveloped Longbridge and Goodyear’s Bushbury Lane site in Wolverhampton – before the deadline of 3 April.
Planning Prospects intends to build 107 homes of varying sizes on three hectares of Holyhead Road, prompting a public consultation that was attended by 26 local residents.
It said in a statement:‘A large proportion of the site is allocated within the Coventry Local Plan (CLP) for residential development. It is clearly a location which can make a meaningful contribution to meeting the housing needs of the city in accordance with planning policy’.
Carbodies moved to Holyhead Road nine years after its founder Robert ‘Bobby’ Jones started coachbuilding in 1919. In that decade, its largest bodywork clients were MG and Alvis.
Post-war dropheads continued to be made by Carbodies on behalf of the Rootes Group and Austin; it also became heavily involved in ADO6, better known as the Austin FX4 taxi, released in 1959. Counties Austins, Hillmans and Fords were also ‘ beheaded’ at the Holyhead Road
FOR SALE
site, which also converted saloons for Triumph in the Seventies.
Renamed London Taxis International (LTI) after acquiring the rights to make the Austin FX4 in 1982, the factory continued to build black cabs in later TX form until 2018. Acquired by Chinese car maker Geely six years ago, LTI’s ( latterly London Taxi Company’s) parent company vacated the premises in 2019, building a new factory for the again-renamed London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) to produce cabs in Ansty on the outskirts of Coventry.
Former CCW editor and arch British car fan Keith Adams was appalled at the news: ‘They say progress is needed, but to go forward we need to always consider the past. What’s sad about the potential scenario here is that it would see an important industrial site effectively erased. As it is, much of Coventry’s automotive past has been lost, and it would be tragic for us to completely lose one of the few remaining sites.’