Councillor remains hopeful of renewed gigafactory plan for Northumberland

Plans for an enormous factory producing electric car batteries at Cambois near Blyth were finally dashed in April of this year when the prime site was sold to US investment firm Blackstone.

The company plans to develop an ‘AI datacentre campus’, with the investment hailed as one of the largest ever in the North East.

It followed a string of funding difficulties that saw troubled start-up Britishvolt enter administration in January 2023. A bid to restart work on the site by Australian firm Recharge Industries never came to fruition before the county council decided to move on.

While the Blackstone development will create 1,600 direct jobs – including 1,200 long-term construction jobs – and a further 2,700 indirect jobs, the Britishvolt plans had been slated to create up to 8,000.

But speaking at Tuesday’s meeting of Northumberland County Council’s cabinet, deputy leader Richard Wearmouth revealed that hopes for a similar project were not entirely dead. It follows the decision of the new Labour Government to reinstate the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

Cllr Wearmouth said: “There are the potential for some benefits from some of the new Government’s policies. We hold out the hope for attracting another gigaplant operator to our area.

“The Government have reinstated that target of having no new petrol driven cars produced in the UK by 2023. We will watch that space with interest.”

The previous Conservative Government initially announced plans to end the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by 2030 back in 2020. However, the deadline was pushed back by Rishi Sunak last year.

Labour now plan to move the deadline back again. However, hybrid models – vehicles with both petrol and electric power – will still be allowed for sale until 2035.

Blackstone will pay the county council £110 million as part of the deal for the Britishvolt site, paid out in a phased manner once planning and and power are secured, leases signed and construction completed.