º£½ÇÊÓÆµ

Oops.

Our website is temporarily unavailable in your location.

We are working hard to get it back online.

PRIVACY
Enterprise

Australian police raid offices of new Britishvolt owner in tax investigation

Recharge Industries wants to revive the Britishvolt project in Northumberland to create thousands of skilled jobs

The site in Blyth, Northumberland, where Britishvolt had plans to build a gigafactory.(Image: PA)

Police investigating potential tax fraud have raided the Australian offices of the company wanting to buy and revive the Britishvolt project in Northumberland.

The offices of Scale Facilitation - parent company of new Britishvolt owner Recharge Industries - have been raided. Recharge wants to revive the Britishvolt scheme to build a battery gigafactory at Cambois, near Blyth, and create up to 3,000 jobs, though the deal announced in February it has not yet completed.

It is hoped that the gigafactory scheme would create thousands of jobs in a disadvantaged area of the North East, as well as helping the º£½ÇÊÓÆµ’s net zero ambitious.

Read more: Sage urges Government to ramp up moves toward digital economy

But in an unfortunate echo of some of the travails that afflicted the Britishvolt project during its tumultuous efforts to get the gigafactory project off the ground, it has been reported that staff wages at the firm’s Australian offices went unpaid for two weeks. Payments are now understood to have been met.

Recharge - which denies any wrongdoing - acquired Britishvolt’s assets for £8.6m in March but has been negotiating with Northumberland County Council over the actual site as the authority has a buy-back clause over the land in the event a battery plant was not built there.

In a statement to BusinessLive last month, Recharge insisted the project was on track. That statement said: “We’ve developed a great working relationship with the council in a short space of time and share a joint vision for the huge benefits a gigafactory could bring to Northumberland and the wider North East. The council has been good to its word to ‘bend over backwards’ in helping us to deliver a gigafactory project on the site and the thousands of jobs it will secure.

“Recharge Industries continues to work collaboratively with the NCC and Grant Thornton has been appointed by the Council to review the valuation of the buy back and provide recommendations to them.”