The UK's only wind turbine manufact uring plant is to close, dealing a severe blow to the government's promise to support low-carbon industries and to its much vaunted green credentials. Vestas is to close its blade production plant in the Isle of Wight and axe half its UK workforce, which will mean the loss of 600 jobs, as a direct result, it says, of the planning delays that have dogged many UK wind farm projects.
The plant employs about 700 people and makes blades for wind farms in the US. Vestas has made its decision despite its announcement in January that it was ramping up production at its US manufacturing facilities (including opening two new factories in Colerado) and following the securing of major new orders this year to supply machines for windfarms in Italy, China, Canada, Romania and France. In April it sold it tower factory in Campbeltown, Scotland, to Skykon.
The group had planned to convert the factory in Newport, IOW, so it could make blades for the British market, but states that the paralysis gripping the industry meant that orders had ground to a halt. Such low demand could not justify the investment, said Ditlev Engel, the group's chief executive.
The news came a week after UK chancellor Alistair Darling announced that an additional £525m would be pumped into the offshore wind industry over the next three years. Prime minister Gordon Brown praised the Budget as "the greenest ever".
Vestas said in an interim financial report that progress in the UK planning system is so slow that despite the extra government money it will be able to meet demand for turbines through imports and will no longer need to make components at the IOW facility.
"If the expected lay-offs are carried out, Vestas will still have substantial excess capacity in Northern Europe compared with the current, local market prospects for the coming years," the report says.
Vestas said that its research and development facility on the island would be unaffected by the cuts, but a spokesman for the company said the plant itself was unlikely to open again in the next few years. "All of a sudden British MPs have decided to spend some money on renewable energy but I'm afraid I don't think that will be a game-changer for the Isle of Wight factory," he said. Ditlev Engel told the Financial Times that the cuts were a direct result of the weakening pound and planning bottlenecks for onshore wind projects. "There are two sets of politicians, Whitehall politicians and local politicians," he said, arguing that attempts by ministers to fast track approval for wind farms were being undermined by opposition from local councils.
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