Siemens delays deal on £210m Hull turbine factory

Matt Jukes of Associated British Ports told the Yorkshire Post a “minor hold-up” in the planning system means the final sign off 
for the £210m factory is now unlikely to happen until early next year.

“We still remain confident that we will move forward with it,” he added. “But until it’s done you can never say it’s 100 per cent definite.”

A statement from Siemens said, despite the delay, the firm expects the factory can be “developed and operational” by 2015.

Earlier this week it was one of a string of multinationals who wrote to the Government calling for more certainty in its energy policy, with the Department for Energy and Climate Change yet to publish its wind power subsidy proposals beyond 2017.

At the same time, concern has been raised by the recent appointments of Environment Secretary Owen Paterson and Energy Minister John Hayes, both of whom are sceptical about the benefits of wind power.

On Monday Lord Adonis, the Labour peer leading the party’s policy review on infrastructure, warned the Siemens deal remains “uncertain”.

He told the House of Lords: “We are in the midst of a green energy revolution, yet new jobs and investment will be delayed and/or go abroad unless we get our act together as a country.

“This needs to start, crucially, by ensuring that Siemens builds its proposed £210m turbine factory in Hull, the fate of which is now uncertain because of Government prevarication on wind energy.”