There was a very useful debate in the House of Commons last Thursday regarding the planned closure of Eon Rayleigh:
Rayleigh MP Mark Francois explained the background to the situation and outlined the concerns he’d heard from workers.
Rochford and Southend East MP James Duddridge spoke about all the other call centre redundancies in the Southend area.
Government Minister Rosie Winterton made a sympathetic and helpful response.
It was a good little debate that avoided party politics. It’s well worth reading in full, and you can read it at the “TheyWorkForYou” website here.
Nice link, thanks. I’ve got quite a lot more from that than I have at Eon over the last few weeks and I’ll share it with my work colleagues at Eon on Monday.
This is a matter of great concern as we have so few sizable employers in our district. I wish Bryan and everyone else at Eon all the best in getting through this. I went through a similar thing in 2004 when I worked for Lentern Aircraft who used to be based in Hawkwell. Although I was fortunate in being able to find alternative employment I found the whole experience very unpleasant as we were laid off bit by bit and no one knew how long they had left to find another job.
I am very pleased to see my MP (Mark Francois) working hard to help the workers at Eon and think he has done a great job here. Although I am do not share his politics I have very good opinion of him as a constituency MP.
James Duddridge makes a very good point about job losses in Southend. I worked in Southend in the early 90’s and feel very sad to see what has become of Victoria Avenue since then. All those empty office blocks where there are no longer any jobs for people of this area.
Just something to watch out for. I have recently heard, from a very reliable source that the land that Eon is on has been earmarked for housing development for some little time. The source for this is close to the company and they are just waiting for the opportunity to buy the cottage next to Eon and this land will be put before the planning committee. I am a cynic, but with good reason. The council refuted any suggestion of this land being built on. Lets watch and see, over the next 18 months! Meanwhile people are losing their jobs so that Eon can make even more money in a part of the country where they can probably drop wages by 30%. It will be very interesting if housing does go up on this land after the council has been saying all the right things.
I am unable to get to the West Area Committee meeting yet again due to work commitments but would appreciate someone asking the ‘panel’ to give a definitive answer to my comments regarding the Eon land issue. If a Conservative Councillor or the Head of the Planning department could give a firm and unrevocable answer to what will happen to this land, it would put a huge amount of Rayleigh residents into a better frame of mind, however if the answer is not definitive, I for one will be closely watching what happens to this land and will have no hesitation in sharing this with the wider public, given what has previously been written!
Mike, I don’t think anyone can give a ‘firm and unrevocable answer’… it’s not Green Belt.
Sorry Chris, I did not mean I wanted an undertaking that there would never be development on this site, but to the fact that Eon had not been in contact with RDC on the potential for planning permission. The report coming back when I first asked the qustion was that there had been no contact, however, this is a complete contradiction to what I am being told. When I say RDC I mean the salaried members of the Council as well as the Councillors!!