Ebbw Vale – employment change

an area affected by deindustrialisation

Main Steelworks closed 1978 – 14000) workers when nationalised in 1967

The tinplate works closed 2002

800 jobs lost (Secondary Industry / male)

Ask anyone in Wales what they know about Ebbw Vale and it's almost certain the answer will include the word "steel."

Ebbw Vale – Festival Park Shopping

The WDA (Welsh Development Agency), local authorities and the private sector spent £60million on converting the area from a wasteland of spoil heaps into the Ebbw Vale Garden Festival.Festival Park Factory Shopping Village is now located on this site.

1990s

Even now, after a reshaping and shrinking of the industry, the Corus tinplate works looms large over the community and is estimated to be worth £30m to the local economy.

A more depressing claim to fame is the town having the highest unemployment rate in Wales. Already 2,000 are looking for work and the problem is set to get worse at a stroke, with the closure of its steelworks.

Corus tinplate works closed 2002

2005 - The town is already suffering from the downturn in manufacturing. A worryingly high number of local jobs - 40% - depend on this sector - twice the national average.

Yuasa (Japan) 2003 – heavy duty batteries

INWARD INVESTMENT BY TNCs with WDA support. 1980/90s

One of Blaenau Gwent's biggest employers has announced that it is shedding up to 350 jobs.

Continental Teves which makes brake calipers for the motor industry is switching production to Slovakia.

The German-owned company said low-volume production for manufacturers like Porsche and Aston Martin will remain in Ebbw Vale. This will mean a total of 120 jobs will remain in the area. 2006

Supermarkets

Part-Time / flexi

Open 24hours / 7days

Fast food

Home delivery

More women in workforce

Devolution – Welsh Assembly Government

Ebbw Vale Enterprise Zone (one of 7) 2013 – area of Blaenau Gwent still needing high level of WAG support. As a Tier 1 area, companies in the Zone can benefit from the highest level of grant aid in the UK. 

30 years have been spent at the heart of the South Wales Valleys where the enterprise continues to expand, as its 280 skilled staff serve the increasingly complex needs of the world’s leading drug companies.

PENN PHARMA – a quaternary company.

CONTINENTAL TEVES – a German TNC – making brake callipers – high quality ‘lean’ business still survives in EV – serving luxury car brands – Bentley, Jaguar, Land Rover

Having set up in Wales in 1974 restructuring the business in 2009 to focus on niche and high performance products, turnover has doubled to £42m.

As part of this strategy, staff numbers have increased from approximately 100 in the downturn to 165, and are set to rise higher.

Continental Teves benefited from working relationship with local universities. For example, a project team from the firm worked together with MBA students from the University of South Wales at Newport to source a supplier for a new process to apply coating to brake callipers. This ultimately led to a cost saving of £100,000.

There are also plans to create an international motor bike racing circuit hosting MotoGP by 2015. This would provide a major spur to the Enterprise Zone project by creating a motorsport centre of excellence

CIRCUIT OF WALES - £280 million

The Masterplan proposes a mix of uses including the Learning Campus, Local General Hospital, Leisure Centre and Sports Pitches, a Theatre, high quality offices and around 500 homes.

The Vision: Out of the demolition and reclamation of the iconic old steelworks, Blaenau Gwent County Borough Council and the Welsh Government are working together to create a new vision for Ebbw Vale and Blaenau Gwent.

THE WORKS

Environmental improvements

Infrastructure improvements – dualling of Heads of the Valley Road (A465T)from Swansea to Abergavenny.

2012 - PLANS to bring the Ebbw Valley line to Newport would still need more funding despite an announcement that it will be electrified. This week Justine Greening, transport secretary of state, announced that work to electrify the Ebbw Valley line is to be part of a £4.2 billion scheme of railway investments.

REINTRODUCED PASSENGER SERVICE LINKING EV TO NEWPORT and CARDIFF