Proactive Investors - The owner of Jaguar Land Rover has confirmed the planned site of what will be the UK's biggest electric vehicle battery factory when it opens in 2026.
Tata Group (NS:TAMO) said the £4 billion plant will be built near Bridgwater in Somerset after the land was been secured by its Agratas battery business.
Last summer, the Indian conglomerate said it would go ahead with the project after securing hundreds of millions of taxpayer funding from Rishi Sunak's government, thought to be roughly £500 million.
Tata, which last month announced the axing of two blast furnaces at Port Talbot in Wales, confirmed today that the plant will be situated at the Gravity Smart Campus in Puriton, a brownfield site where a former WW2 munitions factory was decommissioned in 2008.
With a planned capacity to produce 40 gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery cells a year, Agratas expects that by the early 2030s the factory will be able to supply almost half of the UK motor industry's required EV battery needs.
News of the plant, which is expected to create around 4,000 jobs and many more in the supply chain, is a boon for the UK automotive sector after the collapse of battery startup Britishvolt last year after being unable to access a promised £100 million government grant.
Tesla boss Elon Musk looked at Somerset as a potential location for a gigafactory four years ago, making a number of trips to the area among other sites in the country, with the 600-acre Gravity business park mooted as the perfect potential home.