Council gives £500k to firm seeking local lithium

A £500,000 fund set up following the 2002 closure of a cement works will be spent on preparing land for a potential lithium extraction plant.

In February 2025 Durham County Council gave Weardale Lithium planning permission to build the rare metal extraction plant at a former cement works in Eastgate, near Stanhope.

Now a £500,000 council fund set up to regenerate the site more than two decades ago has been awarded to the lithium firm to carry out preparatory works on the empty land.

The company said it was confident it would have the funding in place to build the first phase of the £300m facility, believed to be worth £25m, by 2029.

The Department for Business and Trade has projected that the UK's lithium demand will grow 45-fold by 2030 compared to 2024 levels.

Lithium is a key component in electric vehicle batteries and other rechargeable batteries such as those found in phones and laptops.

The search for lithium in the region has been likened to a 21st Century gold rush, with rival Northern Lithium also seeking to extract the critical metal nearby.

Bishop Auckland MP Sam Rushworth previously said: "In the North East we've got two big buyers of batteries in Hitachi and Nissan and the best place in the UK for extracting lithium from under our feet."

Weardale Lithium's head Stewart Dickson said the council money would help it bring its plans to fruition and support the development of a "new industry" which had the potential to deliver "lasting economic benefits to the region".

The company said it hoped to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate by extracting lithium from the site's geothermal groundwaters.

The firm told a parliamentary committee in April that it required £25m to construct and operate the first phase of its plant, but that there was a "critical funding gap" right now between pilot success and commercial scale.

It said the successful delivery of the £25m scheme would lead to the £300m private investment required to fully scale up the plant so that it would be able to meet a "significant portion" of the UK's lithium demand.

It called on the government to accelerate the domestic production of lithium by providing firms like itself the initial capital required to go beyond the pilot stages.

Reform UK councillor Kyle Genner said it was great to see the cement works funds finally being spent.

He said the cash would provide the "impetus" for a "burgeoning new industry" in Weardale.

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