Just ten years after winning the bid to develop the East Anglia Zone, our East Anglia ONE project has already delivered significant investment and employment opportunities in the region.
Throughout construction, the project will sustain thousands of jobs, 820 of which are in the region, and we’ve awarded contracts to local companies totalling £25 million, with a further £45 million on construction-related services, helping to boost the economy and strengthen the supply chain for years to come.
To date, £25 million has been awarded to suppliers providing a range of services on the East Anglia ONE project, from ecology surveys to equipment hire and fisheries liaison to consultation support.
The further £45 million has been awarded to companies helping to deliver and construct the windfarm, including 3Sun Group, James Fisher Marine Services and Turner Iceni. These companies have provided services such as seabed investigation, clearance of unexploded ordnance, training, construction services and guard vessels.
Great Yarmouth-based Stowen Clean Energy, part of the Stowen Group, has provided welding, fabrication, inspection, scaffolding and rigging, while Palmer Group, based in Bramford, near Ipswich, has delivered traffic management since 2017, implementing highways improvements and assisting with traffic measures such as temporary lights and signage.
The local port facilities have also been upgraded with £5m invested at Great Yarmouth and £25m at Lowestoft, where the new Operations and Maintenance Building recently opened its doors and where up to 100 staff will be based when the windfarm is fully operational. The building will be a hive of activity for windfarm controllers, service technicians and other supply chain operators for the next 30 years.
These investments have created many employment opportunities to both towns and it’s not just the ports and the ‘direct’ suppliers who have benefitted. Subcontractors have also been employed and there has been a natural ripple effect locally, bringing further business to shops, hotels, restaurants and taxi services for example.
We remain fully committed to delivering more than 50% UK content across the lifetime of the project and with our future East Anglia Hub projects, investment in East Anglia can only increase over the next 10 years.