Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is to make hundreds of staff redundant at its factory in Halewood, Merseyside, UK.

The plant, which produces the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport, will switch its operating pattern in April, affecting around 10% of its 4000-strong workforce (excluding agency staff).

The British manufacturer said in a statement: "Through its ongoing transformation programme, JLR is taking action to optimise performance, enable sustainable growth and safeguard the long-term success of our business.

"Central to the Halewood manufacturing strategy, we are moving from a three shift to a 'two-plus' shift pattern from April 2020. This will deliver significant operating efficiencies at the plant, while enabling us to meet the growing customer demand for our new Evoque and Discovery Sport.

"Halewood employees have the opportunity to leave through an enhanced voluntary redundancy programme."

Both models produced at the factory are continuing sales successes, having respectively entered a new model generation and undergone heavy revisions last year, and JLR states that the shift change "is about efficiency, not loss of volume".

JLR has been undergoing a wide-reaching, £2.5 billion cost-cutting programme in the past few years. Named Project Charge, it has returned the company to profit in the third financial quarter of 2019 and is due to be completed in the next few months.