And all is not lost, or so it appears. In November, Swansea Council unveiled plans to pursue the project itself, after which Tidal Lagoon told punchline-gloucester.com they were “looking forward to engaging” with the new plans. The Lagoon was part of the Conservative Party Manifesto for the 2015 General Election and has been championed by Gloucester’s MP Richard Graham. But with government policy seeming to switch to nuclear, all looked rosy for two of the other Gloucester energy providers. That is until another switch was flicked in Tokyo. Japanese giant Hitachi dropped a bombshell in early January, when it announced that funding will be pulled for all of their UK projects due to “rising costs.” That meant that Horizon – the subsidiary charged with implementing Hitachi’s plan in the UK – effectively lost its number one and only customer. And after a period of uncertainty the Gloucester- headquartered firm announced that 380 staff were under redundancy consultation at the end of January. Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Horizon confirmed that the “current expectation is there will only be a small number of people left at Horizon at the end of the process.” Industry insiders, as well as those working for the company, had expected Horizon to become one of Gloucestershire’s biggest companies prior to the move.
There was even an expectation that it would enter the FTSE 100, as well as being at the forefront of the UK’s energy sector for years to come. Its demise leaves French-owned EDF Energy as the dominant force in the nuclear market, as it builds the next generation of power stations, including at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Although even the firm that has its UK base in Barnwood hasn’t been immune from some bad
headlines – it’s had the dimmer switches turned down, if you will – as customers flocked to alternative providers.
EDF lost an astonishing 200,000 customers in 2018 and saw profits fall by a whopping 15.4 per cent, in spite of two price rises passed on to those it supplies power to. Despite the downturn, the French state-backed company still has in excess of 3million UK customers and reported in February that “all key milestones” were reached at Hinkley Point C during the past year. When completed, the enormous power station with two nuclear reactors that is costing in around £20billion to construct, will be able to produce as much as seven per cent of the UK’s energy needs. That will surely ensure that Gloucestershire remains at the heart of the UK energy market, but with just the one switch – as opposed to three – turned up all the way l
Want to be part of it? email Mark@moosemarketingandpr.co.uk or telephone 01452 308781
February 2019 | www. punchline-gloucester .com | 55
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