With the help of Brabners and Reed Smith, Dutch wind turbine manufacturer Vestas secured the opportunity to take on a lease of a site at the Port of Sheerness in Kent.
With the government’s ambitious renewable energy targets consistently discussed in the UK manufacturing industry, the focus on sourcing as many of the components for the necessary wind turbines domestically is high on the agenda. With previous sites being announced in Hull by Siemens, things are looking up for the renewable energy lobby.
Vestas has chosen the site as the base for a potential new manufacturing and assembly facility for the company’s new V164-7.0MW offshore wind turbine. The turbine will be the largest of its kind, with blades sweeping an area three times the size of Wembley Stadium’s football pitch.
Reed Smith’s Richard Nicoll said: “The exciting deal – for a site comprising an area equivalent to 93 football fields – involved many months of intense negotiations and gave rise to a number of -complex legal issues.”
“Vestas’s decision to choose Sheerness as its potential base provides a much-needed boost to the local economy and could create 2,000 jobs,” he added.
While the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced the closure of its plant in Kent earlier this year, the proposed site has the potential to bring new unskilled jobs to the area previously lost. The opportunity for the creation of apprenticeships and graduate schemes at Vestas could be a serious boost to the morale of people in Kent.
