The Danish owners of the Vestas wind turbine tower manufacturing business at Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre have just announced that they are to close the facility because it is not making a profit. The announcement comes at a time when Vestas has declared a 67% rise in orders in the last year. The company, which employs ninety two people, is to shift its investment to a plant in the Isle of Wight. Production at Campbeltown is expected to wind down over the next few months.
The factory, announced in 2001, was built at Machrihanish near Campbeltown for Vestas with major European funding of £3.6 million from the Highlands and Islands Special Transitional Programme. Opening in 2002, it was hoped then that the initiative would create 124 direct jobs and 44 indirect for the local economy. Vestas are the world leaders in the manufacture of wind turbines. The Campbeltown plant comes under Vestas’ wholly owned subsidiary, Vestas-Celtic Wind Technology Ltd.
Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, energy and Tourism and Argyll’s constituency MSP is to meet the Vestas workforce as a matter of urgency next week. He said that the Scottish Government and Highlands and islands Enterprise would do everything it could to save the plant.
Councillor Dick Walsh, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council, notes that employment in Kintyre has already dropped after both Campbeltown’s shipyard and the Jaeger factory closed. He sees this new threat to available employment in the area as very serious indeed.
Unite, the trade union representing the workers, is very concerned about the impact on employment in aa fragile community in an already depressed area, It is in discussions with the company and appropriate public bodies.
Key questions to be considered are:
- Did Vestas have a time-based contract at the plant that was built for them with public money – and are they now bailing out at the end of it?
- Is their planned move to a plant on the Isle of Wight fuelled by a similar sweet deal?
- With a 67% rise in orders in the last year and strong growth in the industry sector of renewable energies, is there an economic case for a community or management buy out of the Campbeltown plant?
See later pieces on this subject”
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