This morning we had a call from Mike, one of the people taking part in the sit-in at Vestas.
He questioned if the £6 million grant that was announced by the government yesterday had been paid to Vestas a few months ago.
Mike said that the construction of the new research and development department was already underway and the people who will be working there have already been selected. He believed that the majority of the workers who had already been told that they will lose their jobs wouldn’t gain from the grant.
The official word – it is new money
We’ve been in contact with press offices both at the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) who announced the grant yesterday.
SEEDA have assured us that their £3 million match funding is new money.
When we spoke to DECC and asked if the money announced yesterday had been given to Vestas already, they assured VB that their £3m hadn’t gone to Vestas before yesterday’s announcement, so the funding for Vestas R&D was indeed new money.
Background
The IW Council granted Vestas planning permission back at the start of April this year. Later in that same month, Vestas announced the closure of Vestas Blades, leading to the 600+ job losses.
