Prospect’s Steve Thomas joins government’s Onshore Wind Taskforce

Prospect’s Deputy General Secretary Steve Thomas has been invited by the Government to join its Onshore Wind Taskforce.

The appointment of the taskforce follows the lifting of the ban on new onshore wind in England after the recent election.

The main aim of the Taskforce will be to bring together the key players from Government, industry, regulatory bodies, the financial sector and other relevant organisations to drive forward the increases in onshore wind deployment needed to meet the ambition to decarbonise energy by 2030.

Steve brings a breadth of experience to the taskforce having worked for Prospect on negotiations across the energy sector. Most recently he has been heavily involved in building industrial relations in offshore wind and can bring that expertise to bear on the onshore challenge.

Steve Thomas said:

“The Government has set an extremely ambitious target to decarbonise the Grid by 2030. To make that goal a reality it must pull every lever at its disposal and a significant expansion of onshore wind will be essential.

“It is a welcome recognition of the role unions like Prospect play in the sector for me to be appointed to this taskforce. We can only succeed if we take account of the multifactorial nature of the challenges. That means we need to look at workforce resilience, skills, supply chains, and grid access amongst other things, as well as simply building more wind turbines.

“I look forward to getting stuck in.”