Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury: Some excellent news last week for the UK jobs’ market and in particular, the Isle of Wight, where the world’s largest wind power company has stated that it will restart turbine production, five years after it closed down its manufacturing operation. Danish company, Vestas, has maintained a research and development unit on the Isle of Wight which is employing 225 people and will reopen the plant next year when it will begin manufacturing the most powerful wind turbines in the world. The company have said that the operation will be worth up to £200million and 800 jobs in the UK.
The new blades which are 260 feet long will generate 8MW which is twice the capacity of earlier designs and are expected to be used to extend the existing wind farm in Liverpool Bay which was given the go-ahead last September.
The UK has been accused of failing to provide a stable market for onshore wind farms, mostly due to the failures of the planning system where permission is hard to come by. Some reports have suggested that climate change scepticism among Tory MPs has led to planning permission being stymied and some small wind farms have gone into administration owing to cuts in the feed in tariff scheme. Our ‘greenest government ever’ again stands in the way of progress.
We heard recently of the £2million subsidy that was given to our ailing coal industry when we need to be using that money to encourage renewable energy production.
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