BARROW has been highlighted as a location targeted for 30,000 new jobs in UK steel fabrication to build approximately 300 giant wind turbines each year.

This comes following demand in order to meet the net zero carbon by 2050 target and is vital for levelling up coastal and industrial areas says GMB.

As things stand, without a Renewables Development Authority to develop UK capacity, these steel fabrication jobs are destined to be in Asia with the only role for UK workers being to pay for them which is unnecessary and politically unacceptable says GMB Scotland.

Up to 30,000 new jobs are required in the UK steel fabrication sector to build the approximately 300 giant offshore wind turbines each year every year to meet official UK net zero carbon emissions electricity new capacity by 2050.

These are the direct and indirect jobs building the towers and jackets only. The jobs producing blades, turbines, nacelle and generator are in addition to this number.

These new 30,000 steel fabrication jobs and the up to 60,000 jobs in the local economies that they would sustain are vital to levelling up for deprived coastal areas and industrial parts of the UK.

In addition these new fabrication jobs would sustain a further 8,000 steel jobs in the supply chain.

The Climate Change Committee set a target for up to125 GW capacity wind power by 2050 which currently requires an additional 100GW to meet this. Based on specifications and costs of current wind farms in the pipeline this equates to more than 8,000 new offshore giant wind turbines. The costs of bringing this new capacity on stream would be near £250 billion.

The areas with existing steel fabrication skills and/or access to the sea that the Renewables Development Authority should look at are: Clydeside, Western Isles, Dundee, Fife, Tyneside, Wearside, Teesside, Humberside, King's Lynn, Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Harwich, Medway, Portsmouth, Southampton, Weymouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, Appledore, Avonside, Milford Haven, Pembroke, Anglesey, Merseyside, Barrow and Belfast.

Task forces should be set up in these areas to identify suitable sites and develop the political pressure for these areas to get a slice of this steel fabrication work. Steel communities also need to join the political campaign for UK steel in the new wind turbines.

Gary Smith, Secretary GMB Scotland said:"It is truly daunting to think that of all the facilities producing electricity in Britain today only Sizewell B and the hydro stations will be operating in 2050.

"Everything else will have shut down and be replaced with new zero carbon capacity that is yet to be built. To be shut down at the end of their operating lifespan will be all the other nuclear power stations, gas and coal fired station and all the existing wind and solar farms. In addition capacity will most likely have to double for electric cars and home heating.

"A transformation on this scale in 30 years cannot be achieved by business as usual. It will require a national mobilisation across both public and private sectors and national, devolved and local government. Something along the lines of the Vaccines Task Force or the Docklands Development Corporation is required to drive the mobilisation required.

"For wind power, unlike for North Sea oil and gas, we missed out on developing the steel fabrication capacity in the UK."