Introduction
Gravity is a 616-acre Enterprise Zone located between the villages of Puriton and Woolavington, just off Junction 23 of the M5 motorway. It was once home to the Royal Ordnance Factory.
The site, designated by the Council as a strategic location for economic growth in the area, has been vacant for several years while the Council and its partners worked to bring the site back into use. This was to enable creation of long-term skilled jobs.
The site in recognition of its transformational potential, was allocated as an Enterprise Zone in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement in 2015. And it was formally activated in April 2017 for a period of 25 years.
The Enterprise Zone status provides a range of incentives to attract and support businesses that are setting up or growing on-site. This includes simplified and commercially flexible planning regimes like a Local Development Order that is already in place.
In July 2020, the former Sedgemoor District Council decided to pursue a Local Development Order for the site to attract inward investment. This aligns planning policy with the emerging clean and inclusive growth vision and ambition for the site.
The Local Development Order for the Gravity Smart Campus was formally adopted by the Council on 23 February 2022. You can read about this on our page Gravity Local Development Order
Additional income from business rates generated on-site over its lifetime will be reinvested locally to realise the site’s full potential to further support economic growth. This will help to improve the future success of the Zone and the wider area. For example, one initiative is to invest in future skills and workforce development. This is to ensure the direct connection of existing and new communities to the new investment.
About Agratas
Agratas (a new company within the Tata Group) has confirmed that it will build a facility which will produce battery cells for electric vehicles. This will be built at the Gravity Smart Campus in Puriton, near Bridgwater.
Construction will be completed by Agratas in phases, with production beginning in 2025. The facility will eventually produce 40 Gigawatt hours of battery cells annually, enough to supply approximately 500,000 passenger vehicles.
The £4 billion investment at the Gravity Smart Campus has the potential to kick-start county-wide and regional economic growth and jobs. The facility will create up to 4,000 direct new jobs and thousands more in the direct and indirect supply chains.
Read the latest updates on the Agratas news page
This is Gravity
The remainder of the Gravity site is owned and managed by the company ‘This Is Gravity Limited’. This company is actively marketing the land to attract further investment to support and complement Agratas’ investment.
Under the Local Development Order, the land could accommodate a variety of uses. From leisure and hospitality to logistics and supply chain.
You can read more about this on the This Is Gravity website