Batteries go flat for government levelling up

[d000hg]

This is supposed to be one of the poster children for the 'levelling up' agenda...

UK battery start-up Britishvolt could run out of money and go into administration after the government rejected a £30m advance in funding.

The firm wants to build a factory in Blyth in Northumberland which would build batteries for electric vehicles.

The government, which had championed the development, had committed a total £100m to Britishvolt for the project.

It is understood the firm wanted to draw down nearly a third of the funding early but the government refused.

It has left the £3.8bn project, which has already been delayed several times, in doubt.

Britishvolt has struggled to find investors to help fund the construction of its so called gigafactory in Blyth which was expected to create 3,000 jobs.

It had been heralded by ministers as an example of "levelling up", a Conservative aim of investing in communities to reduce economic imbalances with other parts of the country.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63457813

Almost like levelling up was just a load of hogwash

[WTFH]

Only took the government 3 months to change their minds...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-62325675

And it makes you wonder if refusing to give them funding is at all related to Rees-Mogg's announcement last week about new funding for the UKBIC in Coventry. Which, it turns out, isn't "new" funding, but funding from last year that is going to be spread out over the next 3 years. (i.e. announced as new money, but is actually a reduction in the amount that was going to be given over the next years)

[eek]

This is supposed to be one of the poster children for the 'levelling up' agenda...

Almost like levelling up was just a load of hogwash

Britishvolt was a vanity project looking for a customer and government money. It was a joke from day 1 so I'm not upset to see it disappear.

[Lost It]

Have to agree with the above, the pollution levels in just getting the battery building materials to the site were scary. Plus the local labour force hardly has the "known skill level" needed to mass produce a product which is quite volatile in it's preformed state.
Was it just a "put them together" factory or a build them from scratch factory? Does the metals supply industry even have the capacity to supply the raw materials? I doubt it as most of the stuff comes onboard ships these days...

Much like the "Fake Landrover Defender" plant that was going to be built in Wales, it finally went to Germany because it didn't make sense to import everything into the country to simpkly build it here. Plus they got a better finance offer...

I've just built a shop and the plasterboard didn't even come from the EU.....

[Paddy]

Britain Leads the World

Today, 13:55
Britain Leads the World in wasting tax payers money

UK battery start-up Britishvolt has collapsed into administration, with the majority of its 300 staff made redundant with immediate effect.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64303149

[tazdevil]

It ain't unusual for so called startups to base their real business plan on extracting grant money from gullible quangos then go bust when they've run the pot dry. Seen it a lot on a small scale with investments by groups such as Innovate UK. I never qualify for the funding but I have picked up the projects from some of the crashed ventures