Gigafactory plan backed by Labour mayoral candidate

Andy Street's call for a gigafactory to be built in the West Midlands has been backed by his Labour opponent.

For the last 20 months the Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands has been calling for the region to host a gigafactory, which would build batteries for electric vehicles and create 3,000 jobs.

Now Birmingham MP Liam Byrne, Labour's candidate for Mayor at next year's election, has got behind the calls, urging the Chancellor to use the next Comprehensive Spending Review to commit to the West Midlands as a location.

Last year Labour announced plans to reject the West Midlands Combined Authority area, selecting Stoke, Croydon and South Wales as sites instead.

The region missed out on the first gigafactory deal, which saw start-up firm Britishvolt agree to build a site in South Wales.

But Mr Street, who visited China earlier this year to size up potential investors for a gigafactory, said there was more than "one prize in this game".

He said the region was well placed to take advantage of the electric car boom by winning the race to host a second site, with Coventry the likely location due to it being the home of the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre and its ties with Jaguar Land Rover.

A green belt site off the M54, close to the border of Shropshire and Staffordshire, has also been put forward as a potential location.

Andy Street started pressing the region's claims for a gigafactory in March 2019

Mr Byrne said the gigafactory "will create hundreds of well-paid high-skilled green manufacturing jobs and help reduce CO2 pollution on the nation’s roads".

"We face a jobs emergency and a climate emergency - but if we take the right decisions now we can transform our economy, creating the jobs of the future and spearheading the transition to a low carbon world," he added.

"The West Midlands must be at the heart of this. We are the home of the UK automotive industry and we should be at the centre of the green manufacturing revolution.

"The Chancellor must use the Comprehensive Spending Review to commit to a new Gigafactory in the West Midlands."

The gigafactory would be similar to a 1.9 million sq ft site Tesla has built in the Nevada desert.