It is great to see the creation of new jobs in the region. As forecast, the offshore wind development has seen welcome growth to the local community in the East of the county. However the firms attracted to this new business have expressed concerns about the need to employ local people and questioned if there was the capacity in the area to sustain the level of growth and fill the employment opportunities. Why then build thousands of houses many miles away from the area?
Clearly one of the requirements for new housing is to match the location of the houses where the employment opportunity is going to be. Even the so-called Greater Norwich Development Partnership (although there is nothing GREAT about them except the size of the allowances that Councillors draw) highlight employment growth areas in the west and south of Norwich.
Simple then; lets build all of the new houses in the North East of Norwich where there is no employment!
Every body you ever see on TV associated with wind farms seems to have a Danish or German name and be part of either Dong or Seimens. The local employment is not in the highly technical fields and limited to the manufacture of some of the cabling. A field in which we led the world and opened the up international telephone communication through our expertise in undersea cables.
ReplyDeleteElsewhere is is the employment of fisherman in the menial support tasks on the completed units.
So whilst the headline is the number of jobs, we might just remember the promises which were made and broken for Eastport. Councils do not create jobs they just give our money to those who spin the best line.