Call for Job Guarantees for New UK Offshore Wind Farm

Phil Black - PII Editor 20/05/2015

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If Rampion is a rerun of the Thames Array wind farm the danger is that the only thing communities paying for this project will get is higher energy bills says GMB

GMB, the union for energy workers, commented on the announcement of a start date early next year for the £1.3 billion 400-megawatt Rampion wind farm eight miles off the Sussex coast consisting of 116 turbines.

Gary Smith, GMB National Secretary for energy, said;

“Unless Government insists on guarantees on local components sourcing and local jobs in return for higher bills that this energy will cost consumers I think we can safely say the turbines will be built in Germany and Denmark, brought over on Dutch barges, and in turn be connected by cables made in China.

We need guarantees on how many jobs this investment funded by consumers will create in the UK and locally in Sussex.

If Rampion is a rerun of AThames rray the danger that the only things communities paying for this project are higher energy bills.

Rampion must not be a rerun of Thames Array, one of the world’s largest wind farms. There the turbines and much of the Infrastructure was manufactured aboard and boats used to float the turbines into position were from the continent with a workforce also mainly from the continent.

If Government and the energy industry are serious about developing green jobs in the UK they will not allow this to happen again.

The money to fund green energy comes from the bills of UK consumers who have no choice in the matter. They have every right to expect that the government that decreed that they should pay for green energy has an industrial strategy in place to promote decent jobs for a new generation now facing prospects of precarious employment.

Government leaving the supply chain to corporations which decide to spend the money importing much of the technology from overseas is completely out of order and not acceptable”.