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The leader of Neath Port Talbot in a barnstorming speech to council last week, announced that the Energy Park was nearly full. This claim is notably missing from the report of the speech on the council's web site.
Let us recap. BP at its peak employed over 2,300 people in Baglan Bay. In 1999, the then Secretary of State announced that the Energy Park would provide 10,000 johs. Between then and 2004, this target was scaled down to 6,000.
The actual figure in 2006 was 280. Since then, according to the county borough's own press releases, no more than five hundred new commercial jobs have been created: Intertissue 300, Halford (say) 25, Shield Medical 120. (Mardon's 480 are only potential jobs.)
Then there are the council's own people at The Quays. 1300 staff would have transferred from Penllergaer to Baglan, and it was also announced that 300 depot staff would be based there. These are not new jobs, but they were previously located outside the borough. This gives a grand total of 2045 extra since 2006, which just about brings us up to BP levels.
7 comments:
Glad to see you are keeping your eye on this item.
How true, the job estimates ranged from 6,000 to 10,000 depending on who was making the anouncement; this was in the days before the Freedom of Information Act. Once FoI came into operation, one of the first things I requested was the number of Actual Jobs Created in the Baglan Energy Park in my role as Secretary to the Aberafan & Neath Lib Dems.
The comments about the energy park employing more people than it did when it was BP Baglan Bay came from former Council Leader, Noel Crowley, again before FOI so no-one could check the actual figures.
So it would appear that we are still short of the magical milestone of 2,300 jobs on the energy park, that were employed in the height of BP and less than a quarter of the way there to the 10,000 jobs promised.
The Welsh Development Agency at its finest - long may it rest in peace!
G. Lewis
Bridgend Lib Dems
Another source says that there were actually 3800 people on the BP site, when all the activities and contractors were taken into account.
It must also be worrying that the largest employer on the Energy Park is not commercial, but the council itself.
"...It must also be worrying that the largest employer on the Energy Park is not commercial, but the council itself."
We no longer have manufacturing jobs in Wales (or the UK for that matter) so the only jobs are in the service sector which in Wales means Council, Civil Service or NHS (since the WDA/WAG couldn't create employment if it's existance depended on it) You are unlikely to find either the NHS or Civil Service on the Baglan Energy Park which just leaves the Local Authority.
There is no objection to public sector jobs as such. It was a good, if belated idea, to move from the establishments in Swansea City to a brownfield, more central, site.
However, other parts of South Wales can attract new enterprise and research facilities, so it should be possible for the Energy Park to do the same.
"...other parts of South Wales can attract new enterprise and research facilities, so it should be possible for the Energy Park to do the same."
So, why isn't this happening?
That is the 10,000 (revised downwards to 6,000) question.
Well, if the people put up with this then it's their problem; I thing the electorate have to bare in mind that this government is running out of ideas very quickly; the credit crunch has taken hold, and we are heading for a recession, inflation is on the up, due to fuel prices & food prices, ditto unemployment, the country is bankrupt so this government is going to look at reducing the number of people on benefits, specifically the "scroungers" as the News of the World would put it. Unfortnately this will mean the most vunerable in our society, the easy targets the quick hits rather than the dole cheats.
Gordy isn't going to call an election, perhaps he should, it would mean that the incoming government (highly likely to be tory) will have his shit to clear up.
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