Australia’s Recharge Industries was on Monday selected as the preferred bidder to buy Britishvolt, the collapsed UK startup which had struggled to fund a major electric vehicle battery factory in Blyth, Northumberland.

The deal, which comes just three weeks after Britishvolt fell into administration, could help revive the UK’s ambitions of building a home-grown EV battery industry that can support domestic car production.

Britishvolt had been planning a gigafactory project at Blyth which could have created up to 3,000 jobs.

Privately owned Recharge, a division of New York-based portfolio company Scale Facilitation, is building a large-scale lithium-ion cell factory in Australia.

“We’re thrilled to be progressing with our proposed bid for Britishvolt and can’t wait to get started making a reality of our plans to build the UK’s first gigafactory,” Scale Facilitation CEO and Recharge founder David Collard said.

“After a competitive and rigorous process, we’re confident our proposal will deliver a strong outcome for all involved.”

The accounting firm EY, appointed as Britishvolt’s administrators, said the bidding process saw “multiple approaches from interested parties and numerous offers”.

The Recharge buyout deal could be completed within the next seven days.