A wind turbine company whose staff are currently illegally occupying a factory failed to secure permission to remove the workers today.
Between 13 and 25 workers are involved in the demonstration at the Vestas factory on the Isle of White which is now into its 9th day. The protest is against the closure of the factory by Danish company Vestas who blame low demand for wind turbines in the UK.
Today, the Danish wind turbine manufacturer’s lawyers sought a possession order from Newport County Court to allow them to appoint bailiffs to remove the workers. However because the proper notices had not been served against the 25 occupiers, the hearing has now been adjourned until Tuesday 4 August. The lawyer acting for Vestas admitted that the company had not served individual notices on those who had locked themselves inside the factory. A crowd of 200 attended the court hearing in support of the protestors.
Vestas had tried to speed up the process of removing the workers, citing in court risks of violence and damage to property. The Judge however dismissed the claim saying “there is no evidence of any threat of violence to property or person by reason of the individuals who are occupying the property remaining there.”
The workers staging the sit in protest have now been issued with dismissal letters from Vestas as their contracts do not allow industrial action.
The Vestas story has been prominent in the UK media with Ed Miliband defending the UK’s attempts to create hundreds of thousands of green collar jobs on BBC2’s Newsnight programme tonight. He told the audience that climate change is much more of a threat to the countryside than wind turbines.
“The countryside is not a non – changing place…there are many untruths about wind power that are being peddled – such as harm to people’s property prices- untrue, sound – untrue, flicker – untrue” said Miliband.
On the programme, Peter Kruse from Vestas blamed the UK’s dire market on the bureaucratic planning process.
Robin Oakley from Greenpeace told Newsnight “this is a market that is booming and delivering jobs and clean energy in other countries. What we are seeing from Vestas is a legacy of lack of previous government action and poor planning approval rates due to local conservative councils opposing wind farms”.
