It is oddly fitting - with the benefit of hindsight - that it was Kwasi Kwarteng who turned up to a site in Northumberland last year to give the green light to a project that promised to bring thousands of jobs to the county and put it at the forefront of the net zero revolution.
Knowing what we do now about the man who would briefly be Chancellor, many of us might have treated his words with a bit more skepticism. But when the then Business Secretary hailed the Britishvolt project for its “world beating technology” and pledged multimillion-pound Government support - which in turn opened the door to £1.7bn in private backing - it seemed the impossible had been achieved.
Doubts had surrounded the Britishvolt project since it was first announced at the end of 2020. It was described as being the largest single investment in the North East since the opening of the Nissan plant at Sunderland 40 years earlier, but the comparison was not hugely helpful. Analysts pointed out that Nissan was, in the 1980s, a company of 50 years standing, with operations around the world and had both the resources and the experience to build a massive car plant.
