Page 32 - Regional Employment & Skills Plan

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Situated adjacent to the M4, Baglan Bay Energy Park is emerging as one of the region’s premier business locations with a broad range of commercial tenants. These include Montagne Jenuesse, RWE and Netalogue. Another unique selling point is the Park’s on-site power generation which provides competitively priced electricity to businesses there via a combined-cycle gas turbine power plant. Having attracted world-class inward investment from a wide range of companies, Baglan Energy Park has won numerous awards, including, BURA (British Urban Regeneration Award), in recognition of its sustainable regeneration best practice.
Growing Mid Wales
Whilst there is an established advanced manufacturing base within the region there does exist a niche research and development sector with a significant capacity to contribute to the overall success of the Welsh economy and supporting regional strategy. Key examples are located in the Severn Valley. In some respect rural isolation can be an attractor particularly where research and development are concerned but access to high quality communication is critical. The Wales Aero-Space Strategy highlights the downstream services sector including earth observation technologies as an emerging opportunity with a significant cluster in the region with the Aberystwyth Centre for Space and Earth Monitoring.
3.3.2 Construction
Please see Sectors at a Glance for full illustration.
Construction remains an important sector that makes a vital contribution to social and economic activity within Wales and the UK as a whole, underpinning growth and ambition. However, it has suffered as a result of the recession, particularly in respect of jobs and training.
Specialist skills, from design through to the installation of new types of products and materials, will be needed to meet the high specification and low energy requirements of new buildings and infrastructure in the future. At the same time, offsite manufacturing and prefabrication has the potential to substantially increase as the industry moves from recession to recovery.
In Wales, there is considered to be scope to improve existing workforce skills to meet the requirements of current public sector refurbishment programmes and to reduce the reliance on skills brought in from outside Wales or overseas. There is a need to further invest in research and development within Wales to stay on the leading edge of change.
Studies show that provision adequately serves traditional and core aspects of construction. However, hard to fill vacancies for certain trades are prevalent, which are likely to be derived from the overall structure of qualifications within these areas. However, constraints on physical resources and expertise mean that employer demand for training in new and specialist areas is, currently, largely unmet.
Regional Employment & Skills Plan South West & Mid Wales Aspirational Economy