Blow to plans for luxury sports car plant in Ebbw Vale
Elgan Hearn, local democracy reporter
Welsh Government officials have confirmed that they are looking for businesses other than luxury sport car firm TVR to take on the former Techboard factory in Ebbw Vale.
This means TVR is unlikely to be building their new Griffith model at the facility on the Rassau Industrial Estate.
Preferred location
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “TVR identified a Welsh Government-owned property in Ebbw Vale as its preferred location for its car production facility in Wales.
“The refurbishment of the property is now complete and represents a fantastic opportunity for any business to acquire a modern manufacturing facility in the region.
“We have recently appointed a property agent to market the property.
The spokesperson added that the Welsh Government will “continue to engage” with TVR.
The admission by Welsh Government follows questions from Blaenau Gwent councillors on what’s happening with the site.
At a meeting of Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council’s Place scrutiny committee on Tuesday, December 5, councillors asked for an update on the project.
They were told that a deal with the Welsh Government that favoured TVR setting up at the former Techboard factory has ended.
Senior council officers told councillors that they had not received “definitive answers” from the Welsh Government around the future of the redeveloped facility.
Fallen through
While some councillors were disappointed that the deal with TVR seems to have fallen through – others believed it was an opportunity to help other firms in the county borough find bigger premises and grow their business.
This is because there aren’t many factory buildings of this size available in South East Wales.
Back in 2017, it was announced that the Welsh Government had bought the 2,000 square foot factory site in Ebbw Vale for £4.75 million with its refurbishment costing a further £6 million.
Following refurbishment TVR were meant to lease the building from the Welsh Government.
It had been expected that the firm would create 200 jobs there.
TVR have been asked for a comment.
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So the Welsh Government turned jobs away?
I would have been surprised if they trundled a single car out at this rate. Been a while now.
Picking winners is not a strength of the Bay Regime. Far easier to hand over large tracts of rural Wales and let some globalist corporate venturers or their lackeys plaster them with wind turbines. Also does a good job of keeping our communities poor in line with undeclared Labour policy. And Plaid are feeble enough to back it.
The building cost £4.75m PLUS vat so was £5.7m(Land Registry). The total cost of refurbishment was £7.58m (FOI Request). Total cost to the taxpayer is £13.28m. TVR applied to register the lease for the factory at the Land Registry on 6th June 2022 and the factory was completed on 1st July 2022. On the 8th November 2023 the application was cancelled and has not been re-lodged. The Welsh Govt has bent over backwards to accommodate TVR since 2016. This is ALL TVR’s fault. The only way they can recover their costs is to list the property asap. That just leaves… Read more »
The lease info I relied on is incorrect. Seems the Land Registry used the title for the factory and applied it to the windmill and storage units on land nearby. These were leased by a division of National Grid. The rest is correct though and the government says the building is being marketed.