The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) Board has approved a plan to deliver a West Midlands Investment Zone, which the organisation said would be capable of ‘attracting more than £5.5 billion of private investment’.
The plan, which was granted the green light on Friday (14 June), focuses on driving growth in advanced manufacturing, green industries, health tech and underlying digital technologies. It is also set to be powered via three specific regional sites.
The first of the three sites includes the Coventry-Warwick Gigapark at Coventry Airport, which will be anchored by a new battery gigafactory and associated businesses and technologies. The site will receive tax incentives, business rates retention, and £23 million investment for land remediation, infrastructure and connection to power grids.
Chinese battery manufacturer EVE Energy is set to explore the development of Coventry’s gigafactory via an anticipated £1 billion investment. The 5.7 million square foot facility is initially expected to have an output of 20GWh, which would be ramped up to 60GWh.
The other two sites include the Birmingham Knowledge Quarter, which runs northeast from Birmingham City and Aston universities through Duddeston and Nechells to Aston. The other site is the Wolverhampton Green Innovation Corridor, which aims to create new green industries and skills through a partnership between the city council and the university. It involves a £7 million investment for land remediation and key infrastructure.
The zone has the potential to attract more than £2 billion of new investment into the regional economy and a further £3.5 billion over its lifetime, creating more than 30,000 jobs by 2034.
The delivery plan will now be submitted to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) for final agreement before the funding is released.
Laura Shoaf, WMCA chief executive, said: “The Investment Zone is already attracting significant private sector investment and following the deployment of this delivery plan will have the potential to attract billions of pounds more as well as tens of thousands of new jobs.
“Those jobs are key because this investment zone needs to be as much about people as it is about business. That’s why our delivery plan includes a comprehensive skills programme so local people can get the jobs being created, especially those in the new technology-based and green industries.”
