Yesterday’s confirmation that the government would protect £60m of spending on port infrastructure gave an important fillip to the UK offshore wind industry.

But today the industry had much more worrying news from Vestas, the market leader in this area, who have decided to slash 14 per cent from its overall workforce, at a cost of 3,000 jobs. Clare MacCarthy reports from Copenhagen:

Vestas, the world’s largest wind power company, is to cut up to 3,000 jobs – some 14 per cent of its global workforce – because of excess capacity and a cut in order expectations in Europe.

The closures of four production facilities in Denmark and one in Sweden were announced on Tuesday with the Denmark-based group’s third-quarter results. Net profits fell to €126m ($176m) from €165m a year earlier and sales declined 5.1 per cent to €1.72bn.

Ditlev Engel, the CEO, said:

Based on the expectations we have for 2011 in Europe, however, we must now recognise that a higher European level of activity will not be realistic – at least not in the short term.

Far from encouraging words for European offshore wind.