Longannet’s closure would cost a staggering £48 million a year, The Courier can reveal.
The shock figure comes as Fife Council continues to press the Scottish Government to do a U-turn over its refusal to give a penny to the £9m the taskforce believes is needed to fund an economy recovery package once the power station shuts down.
Council leader David Ross said he was continuing to press for Scottish Government funding to help address the impact of the closure of Scotland’s last coal fired power station.
The economic recovery action plan to address the impact of the closure was put together by the neighbouring local authorities in conjunction with Scottish Enterprise and Skills Development Scotland.
“It was formulated following a detailed appraisal of the anticipated impacts from the closure which are estimated at £48m per annum across Scotland,” he disclosed.
Longannet directly employs 236 people and has a significant economic footprint in business supply chain contracts, he added.
“In total we estimate that the employment impact of the closure is therefore in excess of 1,000 jobs.
“The action plan is a reasonable and proportionate response to the impact of this nationally significant closure.”
Mr Ross said the action plan had received a broad level of support at the last taskforce meeting but it was only at the end it became clear the Scottish Government did not intend to commit to providing any new funding for the plan.
“Council officers from the neighbouring authorities have since met Scottish Government officials to explore how existing sources of funding might be used to support implementation of the plan. But the outcome of this meeting was unsatisfactory and fell well short of identifying sufficient funding to implement the plan in a meaningful way.
“This is in stark contrast to how we have been working in partnership with the Scottish Government on the Fife taskforce established in the wake of the closure of Tullis Russell, where additional funding of £6m was identified immediately to support the action plan.
“I’m sure this will continue to be the case but I believe this lack of commitment by the Scottish Government to identify additional funding to support the action plan will seriously undermine our joint efforts to address the short and longer term impacts of the closure.”