City gigafactory plan awarded £35m boost

The gigafactory would be built on green belt land around Coventry Airport

Funding worth up to £35m is being offered to invest in plans to bring a gigafactory to Coventry.

The money, offered to Coventry City Council, would be used to prepare a site to host a battery factory near Coventry Airport.

The authority says the project could attract £2.5bn in investment and create up to 6,000 new jobs overall.

The BBC has been told a battery maker is interested in investing in a gigafactory at the site, with negotiations ongoing.

The council says the gigafactory's proposed location is the only available site in the UK with planning permission in place for a large-scale battery production facility.

It had been hoped that Tata Group, which owns Jaguar Land Rover, would choose the site to produce electric car batteries.

But in July 2023, the firm said it was building a £4bn facility in Somerset instead.

The council has already spent millions on making the site more attractive to potential investors.

A proposed plant is set to be built near Coventry Airport

Last year, the gigafactory project said it was in advanced talks with several leading Asian battery manufacturers about future investment at the Coventry site.

A senior council source told the BBC the £35m was the next step in the process of attracting an investor, adding they were “pretty confident we’ll land them soon or later”.

Coventry City Council’s cabinet is set to discuss accepting the funding on Tuesday.

The council said the new money “would deliver highways and infrastructure works to accelerate the development of the site and prepare it for occupation by a battery manufacturer”.

The money is being offered to Coventry City Council as part of £160m in funding for a West Midlands Investment Zone.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt today unveiled plans for the investment zone in his autumn budget last year.