GreenPower Park: a change of direction for Coventry Airport!
A new planning application for the former Coventry Airport site suggests that the long-promoted vision of a giant battery factory is giving way to a much broader employment development.
Coventry City Council is proposing to spend a further £1 million on preparing a new planning application for GreenPower Park, with its joint-venture partner contributing a further £1 million.
The intention is to obtain permission for a considerably wider range of uses, including advanced manufacturing, engineering, research and development and related employment activities.
The council is careful to say that the possibility of a large battery manufacturing plant has not been abandoned. The existing outline planning permission, granted in 2022, would remain in place and could still be used if an appropriate investor came forward.
Nevertheless, the latest proposal represents a significant change in emphasis from the original plans for the site.
From gigafactory to a broader employment site
The former airport covers around 125 hectares and is owned by Coventry City Council. In 2021 the council entered into a joint venture with Coventry Airport Ltd, now GreenPower Park Ltd, to promote the site for battery manufacturing.
Outline planning permission was subsequently granted for around 5.7 million square feet of development, centred on battery manufacturing, together with recycling, research and development and supply-chain uses.
The ambition was for the site to become a major battery manufacturing facility supporting the West Midlands automotive industry.
But the anticipated gigafactory has never materialised.
The latest Cabinet report now acknowledges that the existing permission’s restriction to battery manufacturing and associated uses limits the range of potential occupiers. The council therefore wants a new planning permission that would allow a wider variety of industrial and employment uses, while retaining the possibility of a gigafactory.
This is not the same as formally abandoning the original proposal. But it does suggest a recognition that the site needs to be capable of accommodating other forms of development if it is to move forward.
The Jaguar Land Rover factor
One important development came in July 2023, when Tata announced that it would build a 40GWh battery gigafactory in Somerset, at an investment of more than £4 billion. Jaguar Land Rover and Tata Motors were named as anchor customers, with supplies expected to begin in 2026.
The decision was particularly significant for Coventry and the West Midlands because the case for a battery factory at Coventry Airport had been closely associated with the region’s automotive industry.
Jaguar Land Rover is headquartered at nearby Gaydon and has major historical links with Coventry. The prospect of a major battery manufacturing facility close to the West Midlands automotive industry had therefore been an important part of the argument for the Coventry Airport site.
There is, however, an important distinction to make. There is no evidence that JLR itself had committed to building a battery factory at Coventry Airport and then switched the project to Somerset. The Tata announcement was for Tata’s own battery manufacturing operation, with JLR as an anchor customer.
What can reasonably be said is that the Somerset decision removed an important potential automotive customer from the equation for any future West Midlands gigafactory. JLR’s battery supply was instead to be secured from Tata’s Somerset operation.
The changing Local Plan
The council’s Cabinet report places considerable emphasis on the emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan.
Policy COV.2 in the latest Regulation 19 version proposes releasing the Coventry Airport site from the Green Belt and allocating the 117.27-hectare site as a strategic employment site of sub-regional and regional significance.
It identifies opportunities for battery manufacturing, the wider battery lifecycle and associated supply chains, but also for broader advanced manufacturing, engineering, research and development, innovation, warehousing and logistics.
Importantly, however, this represents a change from the previous version of the plan.
The 2025 Preferred Options version proposed allocating the site specifically for a gigafactory, described as a facility for manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles and other applications at scale, with the stated intention of ensuring its delivery and protecting the site for that purpose.
The latest version is much more flexible.
It still says that the site provides a particular opportunity for battery manufacturing, but also proposes a range of other uses. It specifically identifies E(g), B2 and B8 as the appropriate planning Use Classes.
In other words, the emerging Local Plan has not simply created an opportunity for the Council to broaden the site. The policy itself appears to have evolved in the same direction as the Council’s latest planning proposal.
What does “advanced manufacturing” mean?
The phrase “advanced manufacturing” occurs frequently in both the Council’s report and the Local Plan. It is worth noting that it is not itself a planning Use Class.
Policy COV.2 translates the term into existing planning categories, principally E(g), B2 and B8. This includes Commercial, business and service uses, General industrial uses, and wareshousing and storage. It proposes that at least 60% of the relevant floorspace should be devoted to industrial or research and development uses, including E(g)(ii), E(g)(iii) and B2. Warehousing and distribution would be limited to 40% of employment floorspace.
So the proposed change is not simply about replacing one type of battery factory with another form of vaguely defined “advanced manufacturing”. It would potentially open the site to a much wider range of conventional industrial, research and development and employment uses including warehousing.
£2 million more on planning
The Council is proposing to contribute up to £1 million towards the new planning application, matched by GreenPower Park Ltd.
The Council says it has already committed £2.25 million to the project, matched by its joint-venture partner. The additional funding would cover planning, technical, environmental, transport, utilities, master planning, consultation, legal and commercial work.
The Council’s contribution would be funded in advance of anticipated future capital receipts from land disposals, with eventual proceeds shared equally between the joint-venture partners.
There is also substantial investment in infrastructure. The West Midlands Investment Zone has provided £23 million towards power infrastructure and bringing the site towards development readiness. The main power works are expected to be completed in 2027, initially providing 30MVA and eventually increasing to 50MVA after 2030.
So what is happening to the gigafactory?
Officially, it is still possible. But after several years without the anticipated battery factory materialising, the priority now appears to be making GreenPower Park sufficiently flexible to attract other forms of investment.
The next step is a new planning application to Warwick District Council, expected in October 2026. If approved, the Council currently anticipates that the first buildings could be completed during 2028, subject to occupiers committing to the site.
For a project originally promoted around the prospect of one enormous battery factory, that is a significant change of direction.
Coventry Society acknowledges the need for this change of approach. The important thing for the city is the creation of employment land and we hope that the opportunity won’t be wasted on warehouse uses.