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Miliband on 'incredibly exciting' £35m energy hub

Andrew Sinclair
BBC Political Editor, East of England
Helen Burchell
BBC News, Suffolk
John Fairhall/BBC Ed Miliband is on board a ship wearing an orange jacket. Next to him is a man wearing a black jacket and tie, and a white shirt. A woman's face can be seen, blurred, to the right, in the backgroundJohn Fairhall/BBC
Ed Miliband toured the new facility in Lowestoft

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, has officially opened a £35m major redevelopment project at the Port of Lowestoft.

Associated British Ports' new Lowestoft Eastern Energy Facility (LEEF) in Suffolk has been purpose-built in the outer harbour to support both operations and maintenance activities and the construction of new offshore wind turbines in the North Sea.

Mr Miliband visited the site and looked around the Grampian Tweed, a vessel that can take workers and equipment to off-shore windfarms and remain out at sea for several weeks.

He described the port's ongoing transformation as "incredibly exciting", adding clean energy transition could "turn around the fortunes" of towns such as Lowestoft.

The Lowestoft Eastern Energy Facility is expected to create about 500 jobs and bring potential economic benefits of an estimated £1.5bn over 60 years.

It features 345m (1,131ft) of quayside, equipped with three 7.5m (24ft) draft deep-water berths with direct supplies of fuel, water and power.

It also has the capacity to accommodate service vessels for uninterrupted operations at all tides, together with up to eight acres of storage space and six crew transfer vessels berths.

Mr Miliband toured a newly built operation service ship, which will transport workers back and forth to Dogger Bank - a massive network of offshore wind farms currently under construction in the North Sea.

Associated British Ports Aerial picture showing new port facilities at harbour with two large ships with red hulls docked beside the portAssociated British Ports
The new Lowestoft Eastern Energy Facility became fully operational in November and will support both operations and maintenance activities

He said: "Here we see the really, really important work on the massive offshore wind turbines that can create hundreds of jobs for people, create economic growth, tackle our environmental issues - all of those things together.

"It's incredibly exciting," he added. "This isn't some theoretical jobs of the future. These are real jobs that are going to be created for people in this community."

John Fairhall/BBC Grampian Tweed is a large red ship seen docked at a port. A white gang plank is open halfway down the side of the ship. John Fairhall/BBC
Mr Miliband toured the Grampian Tweed at the new port facility
John Fairhall/BBC A large ship with the words Dogger Bank Wind Farm is docked at a port. It is red and whiteJohn Fairhall/BBC
The new facility will support offshore energy projects in the North Sea

Mr Miliband was challenged about whether the government was listening to local concerns as the region is set to host more substations and pylons as well as the Sizewell C nuclear project.

He said: "We always look at what local people have to say. But this is my case, which is - we could decide that we are just going to carry on as we are, not build, and leave ourselves exposed as a country, not tackle the climate crisis, not create these good jobs which will rely on getting that infrastructure built or we can make a different choice.

"I think we were elected to make a different choice for the country, which is, yes, listen to local people, yes to make sure local communities get direct benefits for hosting the energy infrastructure but also to build that infrastructure that is in the interest of the country."

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