Here in South Shields the local evening paper is the Shields Gazette, established in 1849, it is the oldest provincial evening newspaper in the United Kingdom. My wife Lilian and I still get a copy delivered as we enjoy reading it together at the kitchen table over a cup of coffee. A couple of days ago it contained two articles that were of special interest to me.
The first item began with the paragraph, ‘More than 200 long-term job opportunities are going to be created in the North East of the UK, as the Port of Tyne is announced as the new base for the globe’s biggest offshore wind farm.’
The wind generators will be sited on Dogger Bank, a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about 80 miles off the east coast of England and opposite the Tyne Tees coast. When completed the wind farm will provide enough renewable electricity for 4½ million homes across the UK. I estimate that to be about 25% of the total and a staggering statistic.
Located just 2 miles from Solar Solve’s Headquarters, the wind farm project base at the Port of Tyne in South Shields will include both office space and a warehouse. It will be the onshore Operations and Maintenance base for the developers’ teams who are tasked with ensuring the safe and efficient operation of the wind farm, once it is completed.
The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is estimated to trigger a total capital investment of approximately £9 billion over a 6-year period.
This is fabulous news for our town and Tyneside and the sort of imaginative maritime challenge that Tynesiders will excel at, as we have done for many generations in the past.
The second item, on the ‘Letters’ page, I could have written myself; word for word. It read…
The benefit of hindsight.
I’m tired of armchair experts who have the benefit of hindsight.
Everyone has an opinion; it was too much too little too soon, too late too many too few.
Well I’d like to say thank you to the government and its advisers for their hard work and for keeping going despite criticism.
Yes mistakes have been made and maybe things could have been done differently but no one knew this was coming and I’m glad it wasn’t me having to make these hard decisions.
Scott Andrews
Sent via email
My thanks to the Editor of the Shields Gazette and jpi media, who own the copyright to the material I have used in this blog. jpi media describe themselves as follows:-
We are one of the largest national, regional and local multimedia organisations in the UK. We provide news and information services to our communities through our portfolio of publications and websites. We are news. Our goal is to provide essential reading to communities across the UK so they can make informed life and lifestyle decisions.
My thanks also go to Scott Andrews, the letter writer.
JHL MBE SSL Co. Chairman
