Argyll and the Islands Enterprise (AIE) is committing £410,000 towards the continued development of the Vestas wind turbine manufacturing plant in Kintyre, which now employs 186 staff.
 
The funding package from AIE includes £184,500 from the HIE Efficiency programme - an EU-funded programme which aims to encourage businesses to upgrade their processes in order to improve efficiency. 

This latest development at the plant is costing £1.4 million and will allow Vestas-Celtic Wind Technology Ltd to expand their product range and increase production capacity.

Tom Pederson, managing director of Vestas-Celtic says that further investment needs to be made in the manufacturing facility and in staff training to meet the increasing demand for larger, more robust wind turbines.  He explained: "The trend in turbines is for greater capacity and we are responding to this by equipping our plant with the correct infrastructure to deliver the V80 turbine, which is much larger and has a 2MW capacity. 

"We have been successful in securing contracts for offshore windfarms at North Hoyle and Scroby Sands, which both require V80 turbines and we envisage winning further offshore and onshore contracts as a result of this investment."

AIE and Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) spent £9.4 million - with £3.5million coming from the EU - constructing the 100,000 square foot manufacturing facility on the site of the former RAF Machrihanish base.  It is leased to Vestas-Celtic, the Scottish entity of Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems - a world leader in wind power generation - which invested a further £3 million equipping the plant with production equipment.

Since the plant opened in early 2002, employment levels have far exceeded the 120 anticipated bringing a much needed boost to Campbeltown, which has suffered far higher levels of sustained unemployment than other areas covered by the HIE Network. 

Vestas-Celtic had actually experienced problems in recruiting coded welders but AIE stepped in and organised a special programme of training through the Training for Work initiative.  Eight locals from the unemployment register took part and have since completed their training with Mitsui Babcock and have secured full-time jobs at the Vestas-Celtic plant.

Ken Abernethy, chief executive of AIE said: "The Kintyre peninsula remains a priority for AIE which is why we continue to support Vestas-Celtic in terms of developing the plant's infrastructure and assisting with staff training to meet the demands of a constantly developing industry.

"We are delighted to see employment levels continuing to rise which in turn brings wider economic benefits to the Kintyre area."