Blackstone offers £110m for Britishvolt site

A US private equity giant is buying land owned by Britishvolt, ending hopes of turning the North East location into a multibillion-pound battery factory.

Blackstone has offered to pay £110m for the land in Cambois, near Blyth, and plans to construct a data centre there. Northumberland county council will assess the sale next week.

The land was previously owned by Britishvolt, which collapsed into administration in January last year. The company had hoped to build a battery factory to supply UK carmakers. The start-up took control of the site in 2021 and promised to create thousands of jobs by building the £3.8bn gigafactory. However, the business collapsed last year after delays to the project and struggles to secure additional funding.

The remains of the business were bought by Recharge Industries, a business run by Australian entrepreneur David Collard, in an administration process run by EY.

Mr Collard had pledged to build batteries at the site, though for energy storage rather than the car industry.

However, Recharge failed to pay the full amount owed for the site and was accused of withholding wages from staff. Recharge was recently ordered by an employment tribunal to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to former executives in unpaid wages.

In a report ahead of next week’s meeting, Northumberland councillors said: “It is recognised that there were significant expectations on the site which have not been borne out.”

Blackstone now wants to develop a “hyperscale data centre campus” on the land, amid surging demand for AI tools and internet infrastructure. The council said the project would result in up to £10bn of investment.

The new project, which requires planning permission, will create 1,600 direct jobs and 1,200 construction roles.