Second council backs gigafactory plan
PLANNING chiefs in Coventry joined their counterparts in Warwick by backing the construction of a massive new gigafactory.
At a meeting of Coventry City Coventry’s planning committee, councillors consented to the scheme at Coventry Airport which falls into both of the local authorities’ boundaries.
The £2.5 billion factory is set to house facilities to build new lithiumion electric vehicle batteries, as well as recycle used ones, and is expected to create 6,000 jobs and support thousands more in the supply chain.
West Midlands Gigafactory, which is a joint partnership between Coventry
City Council and Coventry Airport, is said to be the UK’s largest project of its kind and it is hoped it will be operational from 2025.
The application will now be referred to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, because the development site sits within the greenbelt.
He would then decide whether the outline application should be called in and put before a public enquiry.
Project director Mike Murray said: “This is an important milestone for the West Midlands Gigafactory. With outline planning permission supported,
the site has everything in place that future investors, likely to be drawn from the global battery industry, need for a state-of-the-art gigafactory. Thanks to this decision, we are now in a strong position to progress our discussions with the global automotive and energy storage industries.
“Located at the heart of the UK’s automotive industry, the gigafactory is closer to almost every car manufacturing plant in the UK than any of the other proposed or gigafactories under construction, making it an ideal location for global battery manufacturers.”