Back in April 2000, the Westminster Government looked as though it had given up on shipbuilding in Britain. A ferry order for the MoD looked set to go to a foreign power - which looked like the thin edge of the wedge and the death of shipbuilding on the Clyde. But the "fight" was taken up by The Herald and fortunes changed with remarkable results.
The Clyde shipbuilding facilities were loss-making in the 1990s under GEC, Marconi and Kvaerner, but BAE Systems (Goven yard, pictured) has turned this around, with naval orders, to a turnover of £550m, with undisclosed profits. It can now take on 120 apprentices and 30 graduates annually. Vic Emery, managing director of Surface Fleet Solutions, BAE's shipbuilding arm, has said that the yard's future has been "stabilised until at least 2016". Not only owing to the aircraft carrier from the UK Government, but two frigates from the Malaysian government. It is now attracting overseas work. HMS Dauntless and HMS Diamond, two of the most advanced destroyers in the world, were launched last year, as was the first of a batch of six Type-45 destroyers for the Royal Navy.
With such a success being made of the Clyde when the "right" decision for this country was made, how is it that I read: Grave concerns Clyde shipyards will miss out on Navy contracts (January 19)? Apparently, three defence ministers and Gordon Brown have pledged that the orders for six naval oil tankers would be done in British yards. But someone in the MoD has a different opinion, and has decided that they want to support some other country's shipbuilding industry. Just like back in April 2000, this has to be nipped in the bud. The success that has been worked for has now to be consolidated.
Niall Barker, 5 Grosvenor Crescent, Glasgow.
Nicola Sturgeon decries the recent announcement of the MoD to invite tenders for the construction of several (non-military) MARS marine craft from European shipyards, as the economics of the madhouse. This proclamation is irrefutably correct but it is nevertheless a fact that the "cottage-industry remains" of the once formidable UK shipbuilding and marine engineering industries are incapable of the simultaneous construction of these MARS vessels alongside the orders for the current Type-45 destroyers and Astute-class submarines.
There are now only four medium-sized shipbuilding locations in the UK, at Barrow, Portsmouth, Govan and Scotstoun. The compliant adherence by the UK to EU directives on strict shipbuilding capacities has meant that these yards do not have either the slipways, building docks or labour resources to undertake the above concurrent orders, as is evinced by the current modular construction rationale of these ships in block units at different locations.
From Aberdeen to Lowestoft on the east coast of Britain, not one shipyard or marine engine works remains. The once mighty marine industries of the rivers Tyne, Wear and Tees have been removed forever, likewise yards and engine works in Dundee, Leith, Burntisland, Blyth, Humberside, Birkenhead and Belfast.
George C O'Hara, Garryhorn, Prestwick.
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