Since the steelworks at Ebbw Vale closed more than a decade ago, tens of millions of pounds have been spent in transforming the site and in trying to change the fortunes of the town. But a big injection of new jobs is now needed to back up that investment. ANDY RUTHERFORD reports.

TO APPROACH Ebbw Vale from the south, through Waunlwyd and along the new road through the former steelworks site, is to pass through a landscape transformed.

The buildings and equipment that for decades drove that heaviest of industries and provided employment for decreasing thousands, have almost completely disappeared.

Work is ongoing on an extension to the Ebbw Valley railway line, parallel to the road, and parcels of empty land give way to development – the Blaenau Gwent Learning Zone, the groundbreaking Ebbw Fawr Learning Community for three-16 year-olds, the restored General Offices, the Gwent Archive, and the Ebbw Vale Sports Centre – that has given a new lease of life to the northern end of the site.

Later this year the rail extension, costing £11.5 million, will open with a terminus station next to the General Offices and the education and leisure facilities, bringing that key public transport link with the rest of the valley and into Cardiff closer to the town centre.

Also later this year, a mechanical link in the form of a £2.3m mini funicular railway will provide an alternative to walking as a means of scaling the hill to and from the town centre.

In July 2002, 64 years of steelmaking came to an end in Ebbw Vale when the steelworks, which had been gradually reducing in size since the late 1970s, closed for good.

More than 800 jobs were lost in that final cut, but thousands had been shed from the site during the previous two decades, combined with massive coalmining job losses during the same period, which hit the area hard.

The subsequent clearing of the steelworks site, and the investment in much-needed new education facilities has been a vital part of the regeneration work to date, providing future generations of schoolchildren and those taking A-levels and higher education courses state-of-the-art learning environments in which to flourish.

The new leisure facilities are also long overdue, and a new road and rail infrastructure is laying the foundations for further potential investment.

Earlier this month, a building synonymous with the old steelworks – its General Offices – played host to a public inquiry the outcome of which will enable either a potential economic rebirth for the town and the rest of Blaenau Gwent, or condemn it to a further period of what one former Ebbw Vale retailer described as ‘economic stagnation.’ The inquiry concerned the proposed release of around 250 hectares of common land to the north of Ebbw Vale for the purposes of constructing the Circuit of Wales, a £315 million racetrack project that would bring world-class motorsport and a potential host of linked economic benefits to the area.

The planning inspector is expected to complete his report by the end of May, though a decision from the Welsh Government may not be announced until September.

There is considerable support for the project in Ebbw Vale not least because it is the only current prospect for a significant influx of jobs.

There is also a sense too, that for all the investment during the last decade and more, without a major injection of employment, the full benefits of developments on the steelworks site and elsewhere in the town will not be reaped, and the transformation of the remainder of the site will be slowed.

l The aforementioned economic stagnation is a term used by Ebbw Vale Business Forum chairman Phil Edwards to describe what he feels to be an ongoing reality, despite the investment in the town in recent years.

Mr Edwards, who until five years ago ran a carpet shop in the town, said “everybody’s fingers are crossed” about the Circuit of Wales, which he added would be “a fantastic boost, not just for Ebbw Vale, but the surrounding area.”

“All that has been done so far has been mostly cosmetic,” he said.

“Jobs have been moved from one part of the town to another and millions of pounds has been spent on it, and it looks lovely. But the town is still degenerating, and until something like the Circuit of Wales comes along, that won’t change.

“It looks fairly good along Bethcar Street and Market Street, but take out the estate agents and pawnbrokers, and you are left with very little retail.

“We’ve lost 45 per cent of the shops in Ebbw Vale since 1978. Yes, they have been replaced by offices and the like, but that is not retail.

“Several years ago I warned that without attracting significant employment to Ebbw Vale, we would end up with the prettiest ghost town in Wales.

“It is looking pretty but that’s about all you can say. Nobody can really complain about what has been done, but you have to have employment to back it up.”

l Dai Davies, former MP for Blaenau Gwent, and now manager of the Ebbw Vale Institute on the town’s Church Street, also warns that a big influx of jobs is needed.

And he believes the Circuit of Wales project could represent “the last chance saloon” in terms of bringing in such jobs.

“Targeted employment of a significant size is needed and without that, you go nowhere,” he said.

“We’ve scratched around since the late 1970s when the bottom end of the steelworks closed. Thankfully the site has been revamped, but to do that we’ve left a lot of other holes in other places in the town, moving the college campus and schools, and the leisure centre.

“The overall effect on employment is I think, nil or minus. Instead of generating employment it has probably had a negative impact.

“The rail link has been extremely important, but at the moment it is a rail link out, not in. You need a unique selling point to bring people in and then you can really start talking about improving the economic prospects.”

Mr Davies said that the South Wales valleys, with the steelworks at Ebbw Vale playing a key role, “helped build the world” but that the area today suffers from “a poverty of opportunity.”

“It used to be said that for every job in the steel industry, there were four others outside supported by it, and I believe the racetrack would be similar to that, in terms of the jobs it would generate,” he said, adding that it would be a catalyst too, in stimulating further development on other cleared areas of the steelworks site.

“We have put millions of pounds into consultation and regeneration and there are still two thirds of that site with nothing on it,” he said.

The Reverend Geoff Waggett, rector of Ebbw Vale, said he has seen “a tremendous preparation for growth” since the steelworks closed, in the development of the infrastructure necessary for rebuilding.

“We have the (Ysbyty Aneurin Bevan) hospital on the site, schools, Coleg Gwent, we’ve got the railway coming right into the town, an improved bus station, and a funicular railway on the way,” he said.

“The big ‘but’ is, if you have no-one coming in with jobs that will put money into the community, what is the point?

“The hospital and schools and college are not really employing any extra staff, there’s been no major creation of new jobs, and in the town centre we still have a lot of closed shops.

“Unless we see manufacturing or service industry jobs that can provide income, the infrastructure will only look after the sick or elderly, or create a lot of expectations that will be unfulfilled.

“Small numbers of jobs have come into the area, but unless large numbers of jobs are created, nothing much will change. That is why the Circuit of Wales is essential.

“I think we are on the edges of something very big, but we need a decision quickly.”