After years of uncertainty, plans to build an electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in Northumberland have been scrapped.
Instead, Northumberland County Council says the site could be developed into a computer data centre.
Britishvolt had planned to build a £3.8 billion gigafactory in Blyth but it collapsed at the start of last year after running out of money, with the loss of more than 200 jobs.
The battery factory was expected to create 3,000 direct highly-skilled jobs and another 5,000 indirect jobs in the wider supply chain, and had been touted as an example of ‘levelling up’.
Following the collapse, Australian firm Recharge Industries bought Britishvolt, but the factory site has remained undeveloped.
The council says it is now considering amending the buy-back option on Northumberland Energy Park (NEP3), which was home to Britishvolt, in exchange for up to £110 million from private equity firm Blackstone.
The investment firm plans to build a computer centre, known as a hyperscale data centre campus on the grounds.
Large data centres are used by companies including Google, IBM and Microsoft and typically comprise more than 5,000 servers and cover 10,000 square feet.
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Gareth has more than 20 years’ experience as a journalist having started his career in local newspapers in the 1990s. Prior to joining Fleet News in 2008, he worked in the public sector as a media advisor and is currently news editor at Fleet News.
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