Dogger Bank

[steveL]

Approval was granted for Dogger Bank's Teesside A&B development this week. It could create more than 4,700 jobs and is being developed by offshore wind consortium Forewind.

When the original plans for Victoria Harbour were scrapped by the predecessor to Tees Valley Unlimited it was claimed that the organisation would focus on making the docks area (and Hartlepool) the east coast manufacturing hub for wind turbine production. It claimed 8,000 jobs would be created and the manufacturing facilities would be so large that they would spill over onto the Oaksway Industrial Estate.

It was all spin, necessary to make acceptable the cancellation of the flagship Victoria Harbour project of which HBC had spoken of little else for the previous six years.

This is the 400 turbine first stage of what will eventually become the world's largest off-shore wind turbine farm with 2,000 turbines. With a bit of luck, JDR Cables will get the contract to supply cables to this development and maybe Hartlepool will be the base for the long term maintenance; the C.of FE also seems to be hoping that it will get to run a few courses. The bulk of the jobs though are destined for Redcar and Eston supported by Tees Valley Unlimited who seem to have forgotten previous promises made. Actual turbine manufacture is likely to be in Germany.

The planning process for this has been going on for some time and there have been a couple of 'public consultation' exercises in Redcar over the last two years. When I asked the assistant director of Regeneration, Damien Wilson about this, he claimed that the consultation exercises had only been about the maintenance work for the existing 28 turbines off Redcar - an assistant Director of Regeneration totally oblivious of one of the few major industrial developments in the area. Perhaps he'd be concentrating too much on climbing mountains or on helping his mate Mr Morton to buy one of his Hotels.

This is the way it will be from now on under the new Combined Authority with any major developments concentrated on the A66 corridor and Hartlepool sitting next to the dining table like a hopeful mongrel waiting for any titbits that might fall.

http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/business/hartlepool-college-hopes-to-benefit-after-plans-for-world-s-largest-wind-farm-revealed-1-7396696

[seaton]

The majority of the work will be done in the Far East, then shipped over here. The UK has no facities and probably not enough skilled labour to construct the number of turbines mentioned. Hereema in the past has done some work for the Electrical Rooms so maybe they might get a bit this time.
The best Hartlepool could hope for is the Construction Team to be based in Hartlepool followed by a Maintenance Team to be also to be based here.