Vestas awarded £6 million grant for research centre
28 Jul 2009
The UK government has announced a grant of over £6 million to a wind turbine firm's research centre on the Isle of Wight, despite its plans to cut 625 jobs and shut its factory.
Vestas Technology UK Ltd will receive the grant despite its plans to cut 625 jobs and shut its factory. The company is facing a sit-in at its plant from 25 workers protesting the company's plans.
The grant is subject to conditions which the company will have to accept failing which the money would be offered to another company, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
The company is making redundancies at its Newport site by end-July even as its profits rise. The company says it cannot sustain a factory on the domestic onshore wind turbine market, which it says is not big enough.
This has sparked angry protests and yesterday, protestors met energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband when he was in Oxford, who spent over an hour talking with the protestors.
Meanwhile a rally has been planned outside the DECC in Whitehall Place in London on Tuesday.