IT'S VERY early days, but North Devon could play a big part in the construction and maintenance of the Atlantic Array offshore wind farm in the Bristol Channel.

Yelland, Ilfracombe, Bideford and Appledore have all been mentioned by the designated developers as potentially useful sites.

As The Crown Estate announced the developers for nine zones around the UK's coast on Friday, Alastair Gill, head of marine development for RWE npower renewables told the

Journal

that the expert marine and environment skills based in the South West were likely to be called upon, well before construction even began.

"Before applying for the necessary consents and planning permissions, there will be a huge amount of work such as surveys on the seabirds and other wildlife, marine investigations and consultations with stakeholders," he said.

RegenSW, the South West Regional Development Agency and the Crown Estate will be hosting a supply chain event in Bristol on March 9, for businesses who feel they can offer support in the surveying, construction and maintenance stages of the development.

Mr Gill said that the preparatory work was likely to take until halfway through 2012. "Once we are underway, the first construction will be onshore, connecting cables and the sub-station at Alverdiscott," he said.

Project instigators Farm Energy, based at South Molton, acquired a grid connection at Alverdiscott for the Atlantic Array before the project was bought up by RWE npower renewables.

And the Farm Energy management team, which is now part of a newly formed company, Zero Carbon Marine Limited, will continue to work on the project as consultants.

Once construction begins, Mr Gill admitted that there were currently no suitable ports around the Bristol Channel — in either North Devon or South Wales — to cope with the massive vessels that would be required "so something would have to be developed".

But his comments about the possible North Devon locations were positive.

On Ilfracombe, he said: "We are going to need an operational base and Ilfracombe is closest to the offshore site, which makes it a practical possibility for transferring crews.

"Once operational we are looking at the possibility of around 200 permanent staff — technicians and engineers who may need to be going out for maintenance purposes every day, sometimes in shifts."

He confirmed that wherever this base was located, there was bound to be a knock-on economic effect in terms of boat transfers, sub-contractors and suppliers, accommodation and general sustaining of these staff.

"There are a lot of people in North Devon who are already familiar with boats and ships and the main industries involved and it's going to take a lot of vessels to keep it maintained."

On Bideford and specifically shipbuilders Babcock at Appledore, he said: "This is a unique resource on the doorstep. It will be up to them, of course, how far they want to become involved, but as they are accustomed to building parts of aircraft carriers they will be ready for large scale construction.

"And Yelland is also a very real possibility for us. It has been used as a power station in the past, where big ships used to come in to unload coal, so we are looking at how that could be used for some function, as it is unused at the moment."