A GIANT new wind turbine tower plant that plans to employ 240 people in highly skilled jobs was officially opened yesterday.

Mabey Bridge’s £38m factory in Chepstow was only announced last year, but is already building nine towers for windfarms in the north of England.

On Thursday, energy and climate change minister Charles HendryMP officially opened the plant, which spans 25,000 square metres at Newhouse Farm distribution park.

At full capacity, the factory, which rolls steel plates into cans and welds them together to form into structures as tall as 120 metres, could build 300 towers a year.

The company, which already has a base at Chepstowand has a history in the town stretching back to 1849, is currently producing nine steel towers for wind energy firm REpower – destined for North and South Yorkshire. Alex Smale, Mabey Bridge UK director, said the site currently employs 100 workers. The firm aims to eventually employ 240.

He said wind power firms prefer to look for tower manufacturers who are local, due to the size of the towers that are built.

“We are looking to take more than 50 per cent of the UK market for towers,”

he said.

Mr Hendry told gathered dignitaries that the investment was of “national significance.”

He said: “We don’t just want (wind energy) to be a way of generating electricity. We want the manufacturing that goes with it.”

Conservative Monmouth MP David Davies said it was an "absolutely fantastic" development for Chepstow: “You’ve got Silicon Valley being a world centre for IT development – maybe this corner of Wales could be a world centre for renewables.”