Gravity Enterprise Zone
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 Agratas facility will take up roughly half of the site.
The site has been designated by the Council as a strategic location for economic growth in the area and a transformational opportunity to restructure the economy. It will provide long term skilled jobs. It has been vacant for several years while the Council and its partners worked to bring the site back into use.
In July 2020, the former Sedgemoor District Council decided to pursue a Local Development Order for the site to attract inward investment. And to align planning 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 the relevant documents on our page Gravity Local Development Order.
Agratas
Agratas (a new company within 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 expected to begin in 2026. 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 supply chain.
You can read the latest updates on the Agratas news web page
See how latest developments on site are progressing with Agratas’ latest drone footage.
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 information at the website This Is Gravity
Benefits
The site was allocated as an Enterprise Zone in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement in 2015 and formally activated in April 2017. This was as part of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership portfolio of Enterprise Zones.
These are Gravity, Oceansgate, SkyPark, Exeter Science Park, Exeter Airport and Cranbrook town centre.
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 Local Development Orders.
Additional income from business rates generated on-site over its lifetime will be reinvested locally to further support economic growth. This will help to improve the future success of the Zone and the wider area. For example, by investing in skills and workforce development, directly connecting communities to the new investment.
Enquiries
General: To find out more about the project and how you can get involved, email enterprise.zone@somerset.gov.uk
Planning: For any planning related queries, email majorprojectsnorth@somerset.gov.uk
Agratas: For any questions about Agratas’ work, please email communityuk@agratas.net
For local Small and Medium-sized Enterprise supply chain opportunities related to the construction sector, you can register using this online form
And you can register for employment opportunities using this online form
For any questions about the wider site, please contact ‘This Is Gravity’ by email at info@thisisgravity.co.uk
More information
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 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 LDO.
When will construction work start?
The site benefits from some existing planning permissions and an 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.
When will the Agratas facility be operational?
It will be built in three phases. Agratas is aiming for initial battery cell production in 2026.
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.
How many jobs will the 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.
If you would like to express an interest in potential employment opportunities, you should register using this online form
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.
You can find out more about local supply chain opportunities by registering using this online form
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.
How will the local community – both residents and business – be kept informed, engaged and involved in the development of the project and its impact on the local area?
Both Agratas and This Is Gravity developed a strong local presence and continue to engage with local residents and communities. There are a range of ways our communities can be involved in this process, formally and informally.
Together with This is Gravity and Agratas, we are establishing a Gravity Local Community Forum where local communities can hear the latest updates and provide feedback on delivery. We will be seeking engagement with local parish and town councils, Local Community Networks and community groups and would encourage local residents to raise any concerns or questions through their local representatives.
Local communities will also be consulted on future compliance and planning applications. This is process is regulated by planning regulation and could include formal and informal engagement sessions.
There are also newsletter and social media posts highlighting progress and recent development on-site. Anyone interested in the Gravity Enterprise Zone can follow the latest news.
You can read the latest updates on the Agratas news feed
See how latest developments on site are progressing with Agratas’ latest drone footage
You can read more information about wider site progress on the This Is Gravity Limited website
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.
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 LDO 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 LDO.
Are there other permissions that will be needed, besides planning permission?
The Local Development Order removes the requirement to obtain express planning 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.