| The Britishvolt project was billed as being the biggest scheme in the North East since the opening of the Nissan factory when it was first announced.
Yet documents issued by administrators EY have now revealed the start-up was sold to its new owners for just £8.6m, after hitting huge financial difficulties. The company - which had hoped to raise £4bn to create a gigafactory at Blyth, creating around 3,000 directly and 5,000 indirectly - collapsed into administration in January, and the joint administrators' report has revealed losses of more than £150m.
The company had not managed to generate any revenue and did not have any intellectual property, despite efforts to develop its own battery technology. The long list of creditors include German firm DC Energy, which is owed £26.6m, and South Korean company Hana Technology, owed £22.3m - and 233 former employees are owed more than £5m.
Worryingly, the EY document also lays bare the scale of the challenges facing those looking to make the gigafactory plant to reality, saying that "it is estimated that any purchaser would need access to significant financing in the range of £3bn to £6bn to fund the capital expenditure required to complete the development of the gigaplant."
Read more on the administrators' proposals in Graeme Whitfield's piece here.
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