Coventry City Council says it's confident that revised plans for the former Coventry Airport site offer the best chance at attracting investment and creating jobs.

It is spending £1m – matched by a similar sum from GreenPower Park Ltd (formerly Coventry Airport Ltd) – on a new planning application that will widen the range of potential occupiers.

The land had initially been intended for a massive gigafactory making batteries for electric cars.

But the council says it needs to respond to changes in the market since the original concept was put forward.

It says it has not ruled out a gigafactory but a shift towards firms seeking smaller facilities means a wider range of advanced manufacturers will now able to move onto the land.

Cllr Charles Phillips asked if the council now felt this was the best way forward without further market changes meaning yet another rethink was needed.

Cllr Phillips asked officers at a meeting of the Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board: "Are you confident that the new planning is broad enough that markets couldn't change again and you'd be in a position that you've spent all this money on getting planning through again and are then back to square one, where nobody wants to occupy the site and you've got to go for even broader planning, at another significant cost."

Steve Weir, the authority's interim director for economic growth, responded: "The short answer is, yes, I'm confident, the designation of it is a major employment site, and the planning application that we're preparing now, gives us a really broad range of uses that we can accommodate on the site, creating good quality jobs for people.

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"I'm confident that that's the right approach to take for planning and gives us the best chance of getting that investment and create jobs for local people."

Cllr Phillips then asked for the timeline on the amended plans being prepared for the Coventry Airport site, which is at Baginton within Warwick District Council's area.

Mr Weir said: "There's a public consultation going on until the start of October, it will be then submitted to Warwick district soon after the consultation feedback has been taken into account and technical work has finished.

"What will then happen is Warwick District will be begin the work of assessing the application. But this has to be twin-tracked with the South Warwickshire Local Plan.

"So, currently, the site is in the green belt. South Warwickshire Local Plan, which is in Regulation 19 stage, proposes turning it into a major employment site and taking out of the green belt. So the South Warwickshire Local Plan process needs to progress. It will be examined in public next year.

"We expect once that examination happens, it would be possible to determine the new GreenPower Park application against the new local plan. So that's the timeline that we're currently working to."