Hopes high for jobs boom as Rolls Royce targets Yorkshire

HUNDREDS of jobs could be created in Yorkshire after Rolls Royce announced plans to invest hundreds of millions of pounds in its first new manufacturing plants in the region in decades.

Britain’s most iconic engineering firm yesterday unveiled proposals for two huge factories at the Advanced Manufacturing Park on the Sheffield-Rotherham border, creating more than 350 jobs along with hundreds more down the supply chain.

Rolls Royce’s decision to choose South Yorkshire as the location for the factories, following a two-year search taking in the length and breadth of the country, represents a massive coup for the region and will inevitably revive memories of its manufacturing heyday.

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One of the factories will construct vast internal components for the next generation of Britain’s nuclear power stations. The other will produce thousands of high-tech turbine blades for jet aircraft engines around the world. Each will employ around 180 workers.

Planning applications to be submitted to Rotherham Council next month also include the possibility of a third plant, potentially allowing the firm space to expand in the future or offer accommodation to one of its key suppliers.

It is the second big manufacturing announcement in Yorkshire this year, following the decision by Siemens to base its huge new wind turbine factory at Hull.

Rolls Royce’s plans were welcomed by politicians from across South Yorkshire, which is still reeling from the recession and the wave of public sector job losses confirmed over recent months.

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Angela Smith, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said: “This is very positive news, and will give a much-needed boost to the local economy – particularly because it would be investment in the kind of economic activity we need for long-term growth in the area. It would have huge knock-on effects for local manufacturing. I would now call on the Government to firm up its commitment to the civil nuclear industry.”

Last year the coalition Government confirmed eight sites where new nuclear power stations are to be built by 2025, though the plans are under review following the recent Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Rolls Royce hopes to build many of the component parts for this next generation of plants at the larger of the two new factories in Rotherham from 2013. No nuclear material will be involved.

The firm’s decision means Yorkshire should now still see significant benefits from the investment in new nuclear plants despite the Government’s controversial decision to cancel an £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters which would have helped the firm build key parts for the power stations.

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Rotherham MP Denis MacShane said: “It’s important Britain stays at the forefront of nuclear engineering technology, and after the Forgemasters disaster this investment certainly is good news.”

The second, slightly smaller plant will construct thousands of finely-engineered turbine blades used in jet engines on aircraft such as the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Rolls Royce is understood to have chosen Yorkshire because of its skilled engineering and manufacturing workforce, its existing supply chain capabilities and because of its central location within the UK.

Its decision represents a triumph for the Advanced Manufacturing Park, which has been developed on the site of the former Orgreave colliery over the past decade.

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The sprawling brownfield site is home to manufacturing giant Boeing and Rolls Royce already has a small research facility there.

Park marketing manager Simon Spode said: “Obviously this is still early days, as planning approval is needed. But if it goes as we hope then it’s a big deal for us.

“We’re hopeful we will in turn be able to lever in more investment to the site as a result of this.”

Rolls Royce will submit planning applications to Rotherham Council next month, and, if given the green light, is expected to begin construction early next year, with operations likely to begin in 2013.

The firm’s only existing manufacturing presence in the region is at Barnoldswick on the border of Lancashire and Yorkshire.