Campbeltown Vestas closure – food for conspiracy theorists in role of UK Government

The announcement yesterday that Vestas was to close its subsidiary company’s operations in wind turbine tower manufacture at Campbeltown was accompanied by news that it is to shift its investment to a development plant in the Isle of Wight. In our earlier piece on this matter we drew attention to the fact that Vestas’s presence in Campbeltown was sweetened by significant public subsidy. The plant at Machrihanish was built for them with £11.9 million of public money, £3.6 million of which came from European funds. They were also given an additional £500,000 from Highlands and Islands Enterprise as a direct subsidy for training their workforce. In focusing on this issue we have, at the same time, asked if their move to the Isle of Wight is drawn by similar inducements. This question may not have been misplaced.

John Hutton, Energy Secretary in Westminster’s current Labour administration said, in conjunction with Vestas’s Press Release announcing their parallel out-and-in moves: “I am pleased that Vestas has recognised the huge investment opportunity that our plans for a dramatic increase in renewable energy present. The Isle of Wight is set to become a major hub for innovation and the manufacture of blades for some of the 7,000 new wind turbines needed to meet our ambitious targets.” He made no reference to the company’s move out of the fragile economy of Campbeltown. His statement would seem to suggest involvement of some kind in the move at UK Government level.

There are two issues to be pursued here.

• One is the short term economic uplift achievable by substantial public subsidy to private enterprise. Commercial interests can be virtually guaranteed to take the financial benefit for a contracted period and then pimp themselves to another bidder. They can have no commitment to a community, an area or a country. That is not their job. They keep their eyes single-mindedly on the prize of their own achievable maximum profit. That is their job.
• The second is the role of the UK Government – whose responsibility is to represent the interests of the entire nation, in being involved in a move advantaging the already privileged south of England at serious cost to the constantly struggling and fragile area of Kintyre in Scotland.

It cannot be said that Vestas’s simultaneous moves – leaving Campbeltown and into greater investment in the Isle of Wight – are unrelated. The company chose to relate them by communicating both in a single Press Release. This underlines that in the mind and strategy of the company, the moves are indeed related.