Not so Great Britain?

[Benthosboy]

In the past few weeks, I've made a fair number of deliveries of cable to solar farms which seem to be springing up all over the country. As far apart as Kent, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire, the thing that ties them all together is they're all being installed by foreign labour. By that I mean almost the entire workforce is from one company that has come from abroad, mainly Germany, Spain and Greece. Last year I delivered cable to a "state of the art" waste recycling plant being built off the Dearne Valley Parkway in South Yorkshire. The entire workforce there was Italian.

While not wishing to denigrate anyone, I find it a quite sad state of affairs that we, as a nation, can't manage to build solar farms. And while I appreciate that these countries are way ahead of us and have many years' experience of renewable energy systems, has our skill base shrunk to such a low state that we no longer have the ability to, put simply, knock steelwork into the floor and bolt on panels? Okay, there might be more to it than that, but from what I've seen, and the engineer in me always takes note and asks questions, are relatively straightforward jobs beyond us now?

And looking at it from another angle, is it simply cheaper to have a complete company travel a couple of thousand miles to the UK to work, rather than using "homegrown" labour? Either way, I reckon the likes of Messrs Trevithick, Brunel and Sir Joseph Whitworth himself must be spinning in their graves at the state of this green and pleasant land....

 

[God mode restorations]

Its like that all over the country...i do a lot of site work and most of the labour is of a foreign nature...some cant even speak a work of English..as my rant at a health and safety officer stated...you preach about health and safety and chew are arses off over the smallest things..a yet a work force that no hardly any English is accepted....

 

[Kayos]

We had the same on a couple of sites installing external wall insulation, 90% foreign labour. I did sack few for blocking flues up with foam tho

 

[AndyStobbs]

its all politics.

 

[500e]

Bet there is no holiday pay, sick pay, days of for hangover, maternity leave,no 0900 till 1700 mentality either, or just not turning in.
The 3 sites near us had lorry's turn up loaded with Shipping containers, containing generators, work shops, tool stores, all equipment required to do job, then vans with work force 0730 till 1800.
I understand the utilities cant keep up with connecting sites

 

[Monkey Harris]

In the past few weeks, I've made a fair number of deliveries of cable to solar farms which seem to be springing up all over the country. As far apart as Kent, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Nottinghamshire, the thing that ties them all together is they're all being installed by foreign labour. By that I mean almost the entire workforce is from one company that has come from abroad, mainly Germany, Spain and Greece. Last year I delivered cable to a "state of the art" waste recycling plant being built off the Dearne Valley Parkway in South Yorkshire. The entire workforce there was Italian.

While not wishing to denigrate anyone, I find it a quite sad state of affairs that we, as a nation, can't manage to build solar farms. And while I appreciate that these countries are way ahead of us and have many years' experience of renewable energy systems, has our skill base shrunk to such a low state that we no longer have the ability to, put simply, knock steelwork into the floor and bolt on panels? Okay, there might be more to it than that, but from what I've seen, and the engineer in me always takes note and asks questions, are relatively straightforward jobs beyond us now?

And looking at it from another angle, is it simply cheaper to have a complete company travel a couple of thousand miles to the UK to work, rather than using "homegrown" labour? Either way, I reckon the likes of Messrs Trevithick, Brunel and Sir Joseph Whitworth himself must be spinning in their graves at the state of this green and pleasant land....

and a vast amount of the money involved will never be spent in the uk ...

 

[SmartWerks]

But on the otherhand, go to any country and you will find a lot of skilled British workers earning good money. But as said it's all politics,backhanders and tax avoidance - just another way for the rich to earn vast sums on the backs of others whilst destroying our services as tax revenue isn't being collected which pays for our schools, hospitals and infrastructure. Yet according to the media someone down on there luck claiming benefits is why the coffers are apparently empty

 

[julianthegypsy]

That's really sad. The problem is that British companies doing this kind of work haven't got millions to bung the government, unlike oil and gas who can get whatever they like, even if absolutely nobody wants it, in return for handing out donations...

 

[Wendelspanswick]

We employed a company to put mobile phone repeater stations through out a brand new hospital to enable people in the building to get mobile 2/3 and 4G signals.
An Irish based company had the materials delivered to site and these two Poles flew in to a local airport where they hired a van, drove to site, had their site induction, inspected the job, drove to Toolstation to buy the power tools and step ladders required, completed the job to a superb standard, flogged the power tools and ladders to the highest bidder and then drove to the airport to fly into their next job in the US.
All in 2 days!
They just worked solidly and efficiently, stopping for the occasional brew.
I reckon if I had done the job with my normal help it would have taken us a week!
They had just come straight from a job in the Arab Emirates and before that they were in Berlin.
Apparently they worked like this for 6 months, then would go home for a month to see their families and then back off for another 6 months. They seemed happy, nothing seemed to stress them out and they were earning a fortune (plus their 'bonus', of selling the power tools and ladders on), and not spending anything.
When we got quotes to do the job Vodaphone came in at over 10 times the cost of the company we used.

 

[Wozzaaah]

its all politics.

Got that right!
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