Plant will be built at site close to M5 motorway

Sir Robert McAlpine has pulled off a coup after winning the race to build the first phase of a huge car battery plant in Somerset for Tata.

The Indian firm said it and its subsidiary JLR would be the anchor customers for the new factory, which will begin supplying units from 2026.

The plant will be built at Bridgwater with the scheme being masterminded by Tata’s global battery business which is called Agratas.

McAlpine was one of several firms to submit bids earlier this year for the first phase of work at the £4bn plant. Others who bid were ISG and Wates while Vinci is also believed to have worked up a bid.

UK Gigafactory-Planning-Render View 1_vr4

The plant is due to be ready by 2026

Others who ran the rule over the job last summer were Laing O’Rourke, who decided against bidding and Mace, which decided to concentrate on the consultants packages up for grabs instead.

McAlpine’s win is thought to be one of its biggest in recent years with the firm signing a PCSA for the first phase, officially called Building One. The job is expected to have more than 2,000 workers on it at peak.

Joe Hibbert, vice president for capital projects at Agratas, said: “The team brings an unrivalled commitment to technical excellence, client service, sustainability and exemplary project delivery.”

The business park is a 616-acre, so-called “smart campus” currently being built near the M5 motorway at Puriton. The scheme, a former Royal Ordnance factory, is being developed by private banker Salamanca.

Engineer Stantec is carrying out design work on the plant and will provide architecture, MEP, structural, and civil engineering services, along with risk management, planning compliance and landscape architecture. T&T is project manager.

ISG, which is due to announce the name of its new owner soon, was working on the stalled gigafactory scheme in Northumberland which was put on hold in 2022 because of funding issues while Wates began work at the end of 2022 on a new gigafactory in Sunderland for Japanese electric vehicle battery technology company Envision AESC.

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