Plans for city turbine factory to go on display

Public consultation events are being organised by Associated British Ports to run from January 11 to January 13.

Hull Council is due to decide the application on March 7 – and officers say they recognise that while there is much public support, they are braced for a series of objections.

Part of the plan involves re-routing a right of way, which runs along the waterfront. The application runs to just under 4,000 pages.

City planning manager Alex Codd said the five applications were “the most significant” the city has received this century.

The consultation will close on January 28, and anyone with views on the development is asked to send them to the planning department.

It is hoped the £210m facility on Alexandra Dock will place the city at the centre of the UK’s renewable energy industry and provide a much-needed boost for British manufacturing. As well as creating up to 300 construction jobs, the plant, would employ 700 engineering workers and potentially support thousands of other jobs in associated industries.

Subject to formal approval by Hull Council and marine authorities, the facility, which will be built on the site of a derelict wharf, which was originally intended as a container terminal, could be operational by 2014.

The planning applications would see about 12 businesses already on the site relocated in the port. A factory, offices, storage, handling, testing and assembly facilities would be built, along with a helicopter landing site. The factory will assemble the turbines and manufacture the nacelle component, which converts the energy.

The finished turbines would then be re-loaded on to installation ships from the new riverside berth as they are too wide to get through the lockgates into the enclosed dock.