Where are the green jobs?

THERE is a lot of hype generally by politicians about creating “green jobs”. This hype is currently intensifying in Wales due to the imminent Senedd (Wales Assembly) election. What does it all mean? All I can say is, that surrounding the village where I live, we have seen many ugly developments that are supposed to be “green”. Nearly all the construction jobs went to outsiders and mostly to foreign-based companies.

Let’s consider the destruction of Mynydd y Gwair here for wind turbines in north Swansea. All the turbine parts were imported by sea from Germany and transported to the site from the docks by heavy long haulage lorries from England. The site was prepared by the Welsh company Dawnus but the wiring was done by a French company.

Then there are numerous solar panels covering many farm fields here that once had prime livestock for milk and beef and lamb, with some arable.

All these solar panels were imported from overseas and contractors were outsiders, notably from Spain.

Once constructed, nobody works on these sites, other than occasional maintenance men.

One small part of the problem is that planning applications that have ticked the correct boxes on the forms are now supported by green policies whatever real destruction they do on the ground.

If the boxes worded “Sustainability”; “Renewable”; Green Jobs”; “Offgrid”; One Planet” and the like are all ticked, then approval is guaranteed.

This begs the question: “Where are the green jobs?”

The politicians are all keen to be seen as green and these greenies must think we are “green”.

I RICHARD Craigcefnparc, Swansea