Hampshire councils to hire experts to fight shipyard closure
BUILDING A BAE ship builder working on a section of one of the new carriers being built in Portsmouth
COUNCIL leaders are due to hire a crack team of business experts in a bid to save Portsmouth’s 500-year-old shipbuilding industry.
As fears grow for 1,500 BAE Systems workers at its historic Portsmouth shipyard, the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire (Push) has set aside £20,000 of taxpayers’ cash for a consultancy firm to lobby the government and investigate the impact of job losses on the local economy.
Push, which is made up of political leaders from 11 of south Hampshire’s local authorities, decided to take action after BAE refused to rule out speculation that it’s going to stop building ships in Portsmouth.
It comes as the city faces a shipbuilding slowdown once work is completed on sections of the navy’s £6bn aircraft carriers in 2016.
Fareham Borough Council leader Cllr Sean Woodward, chairman of Push, said: ‘We realise we don’t have the sufficient expertise in-house within our councils to look into these issues, so we have to use external people firstly as consultants and secondly as lobbyists to make the best case for keeping jobs at Portsmouth dockyard.’
The experts, which have not yet been hired, will be tasked to produce a study of Portsmouth shipyard and its supply chain. They will also target top BAE executives and politicians to lobby the case for Portsmouth shipbuilding.
The study will update research from 2007 – the last time doubts hung over the city’s shipbuilding future – which found the dockyard supports 32,000 local jobs.
Cllr Woodward said: ‘I fear that this is the greatest threat the dockyard has faced at any time in the past five years. The impact would be massive and the ripples spread much wider than people might think.
‘The suggestion seems to be BAE are looking to go from three shipyards to one. The last time it was three down to two.
‘We need to understand exactly what BAE is planning because it is being very tight-lipped and we need to find out what political influence from parliament can be brought to bear. BAE is only as successful as its order book, and for British shipbuilding it’s politicians that fill that order book. Politicians can play a big part in this.’
It’s been reported that taxpayers would face a £600m bill should BAE Systems move shipbuilding out of Portsmouth. But despite intense speculation, the defence giant has not moved to stop the rumours.
A BAE spokeswoman said: ‘We are reviewing how best to retain the capability to deliver and support complex warships in the UK in the future.’
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Friday 25 May 2012
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Comments
There are 8 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
Tupps
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 08:21 AMAll it needs is the old VT shipbuilding to be resurrected. It can go back to building on budget ships for the navies of the world. Its gradual take over by BAe's lets bleed the MoD policies starting from the early days of the Type 45 can then be consigned to history. Then those that left in disgust can come back to build ships the customer needs and wants.Ships we can be proud of.
jockinafrock
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 08:04 AMNot rocket science is it!? BAE Systems have 3 sites building shipssubmarines - Glasgow, Barrow in Furness & Portsmouth. Since the major loss of jobs has been in their fighter aircraft industry in the North West they are under pressure by the government to maintain job security for that region. With Glasgow being a LabourSNP stronghold - my money is on Barrow.
MrRoderickLouis
Friday, February 10, 2012 at 06:38 AM<b>Funding needs to be approved for the expedited construction of at least 8 more Type-45 Destroyers for the Royal Navy, with each new vessel 'fully fitted out' with the sensors, communications and weapons systems that designers intended...<b> .. with perhaps 4 of the 8 new Type-45s designated as ASW-specialty with, among other things- an appropriate sonar, ship-launch torpedo capability & capabilities of embarking and operating 2 Merlin-Sized Helos simultaneously http:www.defenseindustrydaily.com2-bn-for-british-eh101-merlin-multirole-upgrades-01745 ; and 4 of the 8 new Type-45s designated as Land AttackNFS variants... How to pay for this?: <b>One or both of the UK's undergoing construction 'big deck' aircraft carriers ought to be marketed- along with Typhoon Fighter-bombers- to trustworthy foreign countries such as Brazil and India as part of a 'package'*...<b> ... with Typhoons marketed prospectively equipped- UPON DELIVERY- with an <b><i>up-to-date technology AND legitimately multi-role-capable<i> Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radar**<b>- instead of their current mechanically scanned, extremely limited-in-multi-role-capabilities type... And, if necessary, throw in several of the UK's new <b>Astute SSNs<b>- with commitments to deliver the first of these within 3-years... as a jibe against Russia's perpetually excessively late and often defective naval platforms soldleased to India... ... and if this did not work, then <b>a "co-marketing" partnership should be formed between BAE and Boeing to make (perhaps 24-32 of) Boeing's FA-18 fighter (multi-role naval variants) part of the prospective sale of the UK's big deck carriers to India<b>... This so that there would be a proven as highly-capable-and-versatile fixed-wing fighter aircraft for the Indians to fly off of their new carriers.... Roderick V. Louis, Vancouver, BC, Canada * with the carrier(s) construction, fitting-out and sea trials schedule accelerated to as-fast-as-prudently-possible... ** such as one of Raytheon's or Lockheed's models: http:www.defenseindustrydaily.comnew-apg79-aesa-radars-for-super-hornets-0411 http:www.es.northropgrumman.comsolutionsf35aesaradar http:www.es.northropgrumman.comsolutionsf22aesaradar http:www.raytheon.comcapabilitiesproductsapg79aesa <i><b>"AESA Radar Eyed for F-15C Upgrades"<b><i>, (see references to 'cruise missile defense'): http:www.aviationweek.comawjsp_includesarticlePrint.jsp?headLine=AESA%20Radar%20Eyed%20for%20F-15C%20Upgrades&storyID=news10184top.xml http:www.raytheon.comcapabilitiesproductsapg63_v3 http:www.raytheon.comcapabilitiesproductsapg63_v2 http:aviationintel.com20110527the-great-radar-race-aesa-development-in-high-gear
urbanvermin
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 03:19 PMIs the answer to a major shipyard closure really the local council hiring yet more highly-paid contractors?
wizard of oz
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 03:14 PMThats what we need more overpaid consultants telling the Government what to do. If you look closely at recent history it was those same overpaid consultants that helped get us into this mess in the first place.
PalaceJack
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 02:48 PMUnbelievable, surely they can see this is going to cause nothing but anger from the tax payer, either they will move or stay, 20 grand spent on a couple of quangos aint gonna make no difference, and what happens after they have signed the contract and the price starts going up, plenty of expenses spent on posh hotels and dinners in London when "Lobbying Parliament" no doubt.
einstein
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 02:28 PMbit concerned with anything the PCC spend money on and success given the history of wasting our money .
Scourge
Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 02:26 PMThis is a job for the Ministry of Defence not Local Government. In any case, they should be able to create this report in house, without employing outside consultants. More waste of taxpayer's money from a group of people who, at the end of the day will have little influence on what will be a commercial decision.
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