Frequently Asked Questions
What is Agratas?
Agratas is a new, global battery business within the Tata Group, operating in the UK and India. It designs, develops and manufactures battery cells for use in the mobility sector.
How big will Agratas’ facility be?
Once fully operational, the facility is set to be the largest in the UK, and one of the largest in Europe.
What will the site be making?
Lithium-Ion batteries to be used in electric vehicles. Agratas’ first customers will be Jaguar Land Rover in the UK and Tata Motors in India.
What is This is Gravity Limited?
This is Gravity Ltd is the company formed in 2017 which established the Gravity Smart Campus in Puriton. In 2023 it sold part of the site to Agratas. The remainder of the site, approximately 50 per cent, remains in the ownership of This is Gravity Limited which will be managing the land and seeking further occupiers to join the smart campus family.
How much will Agratas’ facility cost and who is paying?
The Agratas’ facility represents a £4 billion investment backed by the Tata Group.
Has the final go-ahead for the facility been given?
The Gravity Local Development Order removes the need to submit a planning application requiring a Compliance Application before the start of development, to demonstrate adherence to the Local Development Order. A series of compliance applications have been approved on the site with further submissions in the pipeline.
When will construction work start?
The site benefits from some existing planning permissions and a Local Development Order Section 106 agreement, which allows some early work to take place on-site. Agratas started initial ground works in the summer of 2024.
How many jobs will the Agratas facility create when fully operational?
Once fully operational, it is expected to create up to 4,000 jobs. There should also be many other jobs created in businesses supplying the site.
A key part of the Council’s role and investment in the project is skills development, to make sure that as many of those jobs as possible stay local.
When will the Agratas facility be operational?
It will be built in three phases. Agratas is aiming for initial battery cell production in late 2027/early 2028.
Construction of later phases will continue with the expectation that the Agratas part of the site will be fully operational by the early 2030’s.
What about safety?
This development and its operation will require specific environmental permits and licences to ensure health and safety regulations are being adhered to. The Council has issued a hazardous substances consent which regulates how chemicals used on site are handled to ensure health and safety of the area and neighbouring communities.
What will happen to the rest of the Gravity site?
The rest of the site benefits from the simplified planning regime established by the Local Development Order and it is being actively marketed by the owner – This Is Gravity Limited. This is Gravity Limited is progressing the development of a new leisure facility on the smart campus, to provide services to the site workforce and local community.
This will replace the current 37 Club facilities which will need to relocate in accordance with the Local Development Order. This is Gravity Limited is also in discussions with other potential occupiers for the remaining parts of the site.
How do I engage with the supply chain?
The Local Development Order puts an obligation on all occupiers of the Gravity site to engage and work with local businesses. This is known as the Gravity Business Charter. It is for occupiers to develop responses to the Charter as part of their Environmental, Social and Governance policies.
What support will be offered to local Small and Medium-sized Enterprise businesses keen to get involved, but who may not meet all the necessary criteria for such a large-scale project?
The Council is working with the site owners and their contractors and local business organisations, like the Chambers of Trade to identify opportunities and any potential barriers that our local businesses might face.
Once we understand what support is needed, we will work collectively to help our businesses to overcome those barriers. We are drawing on our successful supply chain engagement delivering the Hinkley Point C project.
What is an Enterprise Zone and what does it do?
An Enterprise Zone is a government tool to speed up the delivery of jobs and business growth. The status is awarded by the UK Government for a period of 25 years to speed up delivery of employment sites and to attract inward investment into an area.
This status allows for a simplified planning process including Local Development Orders.
Importantly, all business rates collected from an Enterprise Zone are kept by the local authority – Somerset Council. The rates collected are to be reinvested locally to speed up delivery and provide a further boost to the local economy.
What is a Local Development Order?
A Local Development Order streamlines the planning process, providing permitted development rights for specified types of development in defined locations. The Local Development Order establishes a series of parameters that must be met by anyone wishing to develop the site.
In February 2022, the former Sedgemoor District Council adopted the Gravity Local Development Order. This effectively grants planning permission for future proposals in accordance with development parameters set out in the Local Development Order. The next stage is for any developer wishing to build on the site to demonstrate that their proposals comply with those Local Development Order parameters. This is known as the Compliance Process.
The Gravity Local Development Order sets out a simplified planning process to facilitate the delivery of:
- substantial commercial floorspace (up to 1 million square metres for an advanced manufacturing facility) and smart campus including a wide range of supporting uses (up to 100,000 square metres), up to 750 homes for people principally employed on site and associated infrastructure.
If proposals meet the criteria, the Local Development Order means there is no requirement for any formal application for planning permission.
Does the Local Development Order mean no further planning applications are needed?
If a proposal is not considered to be compliant with the parameters of the Gravity Local Development Order, a planning application will be required.
The approach currently being undertaken by Agratas is that its proposals will be compliant with the Local Development Order. However, it may be the case that ancillary works or additional phases not yet considered fall outside the approved parameters. In that case they require separate planning applications.
An applicant needs to submit a Local Development Order Compliance Application. The Local Planning Authority (Somerset Council) will consider the acceptability of the proposed development against the parameters in the Local Development Order.
Are there other permissions that will be needed, besides planning permission?
The Local Development Order removes the requirement to obtain a permission. But it does not remove the need to obtain other statutory consents. This includes Building Regulations approval, consents under Highways legislation, environmental licensing and permitting and Health and Safety Executive consents.
It remains the responsibility of each future occupier to ensure that all other statutory requirements are followed.
Will there be any further new roads or other infrastructure built as part of this development?
There will need to be new roads within the site and they will need to connect to existing infrastructure.
The detail will come through compliance submissions, as each occupier will need to develop its own transport strategy and be assessed against the Local Development Order and the associated transport model. It is expected that occupiers will develop a multi-modal transport strategy. And the Council as the local highway authority, together with National Highways, will consider effects and mitigation requirements and respond as a delivery agency.
There will also be other infrastructure compliance applications, for example on energy distribution.