Workers at a wind turbine manufacturing plant in the South of England staged a protest this week over plans to close the factory.
The staff at Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of White are being laid off due to the closure of the factory in the Island’s main town of Newport. Banners saying “Jobs worth fighting for” hung outside of the building demonstrating the strength of feeling of both trade unionists and environmentalists. One worker said “this is a factory that should not be closing down, this is a factory making money”.
The Vestas turbine blade factory on the Isle of White is the only wind turbine factory in the UK and employs 600 people. The closure will add to the growing number of unemployed on the Island. The factory is following the same footsteps as Vestas’ previous factory in Cambeltown which briefly employed up to 92 people. The company set up in the town after being granted a £12m public subsidy and cited reasons including “obsolete technology” for closing.
Vestas reported a quarterly sales rise of 59% to 1.11bn euros but say that it can produce the turbine blades cheaper in the US.
The protest ironically took place just after the release of the government’s new renewable energy strategy which aims to create thousands of green collar jobs. The UK currently buys in wind turbine components from countries with more established and faster moving wind industries such as Germany and Denmark.
Terry Portwain
July 29th, 2009
Interesting article relating to this on page 15 of todays (29th July) edition of “The Times”
Vicky Portwain
July 29th, 2009
Court hearing adjourned to next week. Was Times article pro or anti wind?
Climbing Frames Expert
August 26th, 2009
Passionate campaign, but ultimately failed. Seems Vestas only came to the Island for the government grants and tax breaks, and have moved on to get more grants from the USA. When governments try to influence the market with money, distortions like this happen. It looks like a great industry with a great future and one that the UK really should be leading in, but the Danes are chasing the grants. Shame no other company could be persuaded to pick up the factory.
wind
August 26th, 2009
agree trying to influence markets with money is not sustainable, just a short term political gesture rather than what is really needed i.e genuine committment to change via planning legislation and some guts to see it through