From Seedy to Sustainable: Discover How an English Town is Leading the Green Energy Revolution!

Bridgwater in Somerset, once notorious for its social problems and widespread chemical ‘pong’, has been an underdog for so long that locals can hardly believe the city is bidding to become the powerhouse of Great Britain.

Once described in a book by Shit city, Bridgwater heralds itself with Rio-trolling’s ironic claim that it is “the home of carnival”. Already home to the first of a new generation of nuclear power stations, it also hopes to house Britain’s largest battery gigafactory.

The medium-sized city, straddling the muddy River Parrett, has been transformed by nearby Hinkley Point C, one of Europe’s largest construction projects. The site is set to provide enough power for 6 million homes from two nuclear reactors.

Now Bridgwater hopes so Nanny, the Indian conglomerate that owns Jaguar Land Rover, will build a vast factory on the edge of the city, supplying batteries for a new generation of electric vehicles. The company is expected to choose between Bridgwater and a site in Spain shortly.

Government ministers are confident Tata will build the gigafactory at Gravity, a 600-acre “smart campus” on the site of a former munitions factory that supplied explosives for the RAF’s famous bouncing bombs.

More than £500m in grants, including discounted energy and a new motorway interchange, could make it happen. Gravity site bosses believe a gigabattery factory could employ more than 5,000 employees.

It would be a big extra boost for Bridgwater, long considered the unfashionable neighbor of neighboring county town Taunton. Thanks to Hinkley Point, it’s already on the rise, its population has increased to more than 50,000, the city’s workforce is learning new skills in welding, mechanics, and construction to take jobs at the nuclear power plant.

More than 9,000 people are directly employed in the round-the-clock operation to build the power plant, and civic leaders hope their skills can be redeployed to the gigafactory and other local projects once built.

For Bridgwater it is the culmination of a 20-year effort to transform the local economy. Unlike the model adopted by many other depressed cities, civic leaders here are aiming for a revival based on production, not services.

“This is an industrial city,” said Ian Liddell-Grainger, Conservative MP for Bridgwater, over coffee. “If you look south-west from Penzance to Gloucester, we’re an anomaly – in a sea of ​​services, we do stuff.”

Bridgwater has always done things: once known for its brick and tile work, the town has subsequently gained notoriety for the stench emanating from Britain’s cellophane factories, which once employed some 3,000 people. ‘Bridgy’ became known as the ‘stinky town’ on the road to Cornwall.

When the factory finally closed in 2005, Bridgwater was plagued by unemployment and social problems. In response, Sedgemoor Local Council has decided to embrace the town’s prime location on the M5 motorway and good rail links to rebuild the town’s industrial base.

“We’re really the widget makers, we’re alone,” Liddell-Grainger said. Müller, the German dairy company, has a milk factory here, while Mulberry has drawn on a local tradition of leather goods to build a luxury goods factory in the city.

Bridgwater’s ambitions are underpinned by two key factors. The first is that Bridgwater and Taunton College has become a large supplier of skilled workers, with 26,000 students enrolled, working in partnership with Hinkley Point C, which is due to go live in 2027.

There is a National Nuclear College, alongside centers of excellence in fields such as construction and innovation, mechanics and welding. The EDF-led powerhouse, backed by a one-third stake in Chinese nuclear firm CGN, says it has invested £5bn in the local economy since 2016.

The second driver is housing. Unlike many towns and villages in the scenic western countryside, Bridgwater seems largely undisturbed by its sprawling green fields. Duncan McGinty, former Sedgemoor council leader, says the new housing is ‘a sign of a buoyant economy’. Doug Bamsey, project leader at the Gravity site, agrees: “This area is conducive to growth and business. People want opportunities.”

Such is the newfound confidence of the fragmented city that Liddell-Grainger has reckless declared in 2019, nearby Taunton reminded him of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo. The deputy chuckles: “I had to apologise. In Aleppo.”

On the town’s main street, which leads to the Parrett, 25-year-old Jessica Smith says the town has changed beyond recognition: “It’s definitely improved,” said the assistant. “There are better jobs and more shops. People are more optimistic.”

Ani Ivanova, section head at a nearby cheesecake factory, says the city has changed in the 12 years she’s lived here. “It looks livelier,” she says. “I liked Bridgwater because it was a quiet town, it gets busier every year.”

Some 11 miles away is the main reason for this renaissance: a vast landscape of more than 50 concrete cranes and towers rising above the gray Bristol Channel, where a new nuclear complex is taking shape alongside two defunct reactors .

Hinkley Point C has been heavily criticized for the high cost of the project and the high price of the energy it will produce; the involvement of a Chinese company is also highly controversial.

But for 36-year-old Andrew Cockcroft, the project’s local economic development chief, it’s a wonderful thing. “This is the epicenter of the push for low-carbon energy – and it’s just outside sleepy old Bridgwater.”

Cockcroft says Bridgwater and its new skilled workforce could be a center for nuclear power, batteries and also play a role in developing new offshore wind farms off the south west coast.

If Tata builds its gigafactory outside Bridgwater, it has the option of striking a discounted energy deal with Hinkley Point and effectively plugging into the station’s power cables, which run alongside the Gravity site.

McGinty says a gigafactory would be a triumph for the city. “It’s a journey we’ve taken to bring Bridgwater and the surrounding area into the world as it is now,” she said.