New Welsh wind turbine factory boosts green manufacturing vision

The government's plans to establish the UK as a low-carbon manufacturing hub were given a major boost yesterday with the news that engineering firm Mabey Bridge is to open a new factory in Wales to build towers for wind turbines.

The company said that it is to invest £38m in the new facility at Chepstow, pledging to create 240 jobs in the process.

"This is a significant announcement which will provide a massive boost for the local economy, creating hundreds of jobs," managing director Peter Lloyd told the Press Association. "The investment goes against the grain of the decline in the manufacturing sector in the UK and will put South Wales at the heart of the move towards a low-carbon economy."

He added that the factory would be large enough to produce about half the towers needed for new onshore and offshore wind turbines in the UK over the coming years, significantly reducing the need for imports.

The move was welcomed by the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), which said that the announcement marked the "rebirth" of British wind energy manufacturing.

"This is exactly what the renewable energy industry and the Welsh Assembly Government have been hoping for – our own manufacturing plant that supplies the materials needed to drive the green energy revolution," said head of BWEA Cymru, Llywelyn Rhys.

However, BWEA Cymru chairman John Woodruff warned that the success of the factory rested on the Welsh Assembly's ability to tackle the planning delays that have hampered many wind farm projects in the country. "We need to see some consents for onshore projects in Wales in order to give the new factory a full order book and help Wales keep as much of the investment as possible," he said.

The announcement will also come as a relief to the government, which has faced consistent criticism since the UK's only large-scale wind turbine factory closed last summer.

The decision by Vestas to switch manufacturing from its facility in the Isle of Wight to the US sparked a flurry of protests against the government, with many observers accusing it of overseeing a decline in UK manufacturing that has resulted in much of the investment in British wind farms flowing into the coffers of foreign manufacturers.

Subsequently, US firm Clipper Windpower has announced plans to build new turbine blades in the North East, while the government remains hopeful that it can secure an agreement with either GE or Siemens for the engineering giants to locate their planned new manufacturing plants in the UK.