46 Mayors and Council Leaders from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland Co-Sign Letter Demanding Investment in Green Maritime Infrastructure and Technology.
Letter follows PM’s ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ Speech
Cllr Philip Jackson, leader of North East Lincolnshire Council, has added his name to a national letter calling on the Chancellor to invest £1bn in the maritime sector to kick-start a world-leading maritime decarbonisation programme, creating tens of thousands of new green jobs as part of a green industrial revolution.
The letter – signed by all the UK’s major maritime hubs from Belfast to Brighton, Dumfries to Devon and Swansea to Sussex, and including Grimsby and Immingham – comes after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Party Conference speech in which he set out his blue print for a ‘green industrial revolution’ and to invest £160m in ports and factories to manufacture the next generation of wind turbines.
The letter urges a more ambitious £1bn investment to kick-start a programme to completely decarbonise the maritime sector. Without doing so, the Government will not be able to meet its legally-binding net-zero emissions targets. The investment would help develop zero-emission vessels and green infrastructure to install and service new windfarms announced by the Prime Minister.
The investment would turbo-charge the UK’s maritime decarbonisation programme, creating over 74,000 ‘green collar jobs’ in ex-industrial and coastal towns and cities across the UK which have been hardest hit from the coronavirus pandemic. There is no better way of levelling-up than by backing this sector; hardwired into the DNA of our island nation.
Given that the lifespan of many vessels is around twenty years, zero-emission vessels will need to be in the water by the end of this decade, and the solutions are not yet viable. The funding would be spent on research and development and green infrastructure.
The maritime sector is predicted to be worth $3trn globally by 2030. But without investment now the UK’s share of the global market will shrink as other maritime nations – in Scandinavia and the Far East – continue to move ahead. The sector has burnt through vast sums of cash keeping Britain supplied with fuel, food and medicine as passenger volumes have shrunk through the COVID-19 crisis meaning Government support is critical.
Ben Murray, director of Maritime UK said:
“That this letter has been signed by mayors and council leaders from across the United Kingdom demonstrates the unique role that maritime plays across the whole country. Our Spending Review bid would create 74,000 well-paid, high-quality green collar jobs. And such is the nature of maritime, the vast majority of these would be in coastal towns and cities across the UK. There are very few sectors that can match maritime for its ability to level-up these communities.
“The maritime sector supports the PM’s pledge to invest £160m into ports and factories to manufacture the next generation of wind turbines. But we want the Government to go further. The sector has been calling for £1bn of investment in the planned Spending Review to kickstart the green investment needed to decarbonise the maritime sector entirely. Without doing so, the UK cannot reach its net-zero commitments.
“The reality is that businesses have burnt through their cash reserves keeping Britain supplied with fuel, food and medicine throughout the COVID crisis. They simply don’t have the capital to invest in green technology and infrastructure on their own. As these Mayors and Council Leaders have shown, backing maritime does more than simply support a single sector: it will help transform the fortunes of coastal towns and cities around the United Kingdom. It is therefore absolutely critical the sector gets the Government investment it requires, and now.”
Cllr Philip Jackson, leader of NELC, said:
“We welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to green energy in his speech earlier this week. Grimsby is a world leader in the development of operations and maintenance facilities for the offshore windfarms in the southern North Sea with the global giants, Orsted and RWE, choosing to base themselves here. Not only that, but the recent relocation of the ORE Catapult into Grimsby and their aspirations for a Centre of Excellence in the town confirms our key credentials. Our access to those offshore sites is unparalleled, and as demand for green energy increases, we know we have the facilities to grow further as part of the Energy Estuary.”
Beyond the immediate focus on heavy industry and turbine manufacturing, local leaders are increasingly emphasizing the need for comprehensive urban redevelopment to ensure these coastal communities can sustain long-term economic growth. Grimsby’s broader municipal strategy involves transforming the historic, underutilized port districts into vibrant commercial zones capable of attracting a wider spectrum of service-based industries alongside the energy sector.
A central pillar of this revitalization effort has been the aggressive expansion of high-speed digital infrastructure throughout the region’s older industrial footprints. By outfitting Victorian-era dockside warehouses with gigabit fiber networks and modern amenities, the council aims to create highly competitive commercial real estate that appeals to modern, digital-first enterprises looking for alternatives to expensive major metropolitan hubs.
This dual strategy of preserving maritime heritage while upgrading technological capabilities is already beginning to shift the local employment landscape. The newly renovated enterprise zones have successfully attracted a diverse array of commercial tenants over the past year, from marine logistics software startups to the regional customer operations team for a major online casino, bringing much-needed administrative and technical roles to the area.
Local planners view this growing digital ecosystem not as a departure from the town’s maritime roots, but as a necessary complement to the upcoming green energy transition. The same robust data networks that draw tech firms and digital service providers to the docks are also essential for managing the complex smart grids and automated port logistics that will define the next generation of zero-emission maritime operations.
Ultimately, however, council members acknowledge that while cultivating a diverse business landscape provides vital economic resilience, the monumental £1bn maritime decarbonisation bid remains the absolute linchpin of their strategy. Without decisive action and immediate capital from the national government to build the underlying green infrastructure, the broader vision for a truly leveled-up, future-proof coastal economy will remain out of reach.
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