Report to the People
16th October 2004
Opening
Lines
Not
exactly doing my bit to dispel the outrageous and defamatory myth that
politicians would turn up for the opening of an envelope, I managed to attend
two official openings last week.
Fresh
from the day of “quiet Scottish dignity” (with a parade, a brass band and a
fly past) that was Saturday’s official opening of the Scottish Parliament,
Tuesday saw me at the inauguration of online retailer Amazon.co.uk’s new
distribution centre at Gourock.
Now
up and running – the 200 plus new recruits have already dispatched thousands
of customer orders – the facility is truly something to behold.
The 3.5 miles of shelving hold everything from novels to shovels and
cover an area roughly equivalent to five football pitches.
As
the Enterprise Minister himself said, attracting investment in growth industries
is key to the Executive’s Smart, Successful, Scotland strategy.
It
is also crucial to our economic regeneration.
Amazon’s investment in Inverclyde, which was supported with an offer of
£1.6 million in Regional Selective Assistance, has brought us the sort of
full-time jobs which a strong economy needs.
After all, why would people keen to work hard and contribute to their
community remain in an area where all that was on offer was temporary and
insecure employment?
So
this is a positive step. But it is
only a step. We now need to work to
convince other market-leading companies of all sizes to follow Amazon’s
example – and we’ll only do that if they see Amazon’s decision paying off.
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