Jaguar Land Rover’s owner Tata has chosen the Gravity ‘smart campus’ site in Bridgwater, Somerset, for a new multi-billion pound electric car battery plant, according to the BBC.
The broadcaster said the boss of Tata will fly to London next week to finalise the deal on the site of a former Royal Ordnance Factory, with up to 9,000 jobs created.
It was rumoured that Tata was also considering a site in Spain for the car battery plant, but the 616-acre Somerset site, which was designated as an Enterprise Zone in 2017, looks to have won out.
It is understood Tata will receive hundreds of millions of pounds of government support in the form of grants, energy subsidies and other training and research funding if it chooses the UK for its new car battery plant.
Salamanca Group completed the acquisition of the Gravity site in 2017 and in 2022 site preparations were completed and remedial works were signed off by Sedgemoor District Council (now Somerset Council).
In 2022, Sedgemoor District Council adopted the Gravity Local Development Order (LDO) granting the site owner a streamlined planning process with any proposals that come forward that comply with the conditions of the LDO not requiring a formal application for planning permission.
The site owner said it was seeking to attract “large-scale clean growth occupiers” and earlier this year confirmed it was in “live discussions with exciting large-scale occupiers”.
Earlier this week, Tesla boss Elon Musk told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council in London that he would “strongly consider England” as a future gigafactory location.
