14 - October -2015
INSIDE THIS WEEK’S ISSUE... NEWS
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Does tikka leave your tongue tingling?
SPORT
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Young Everton fan signed by Man Utd
Not so Octobrrrrrr
©Keith Hecky
©wikimedia commons
Harry Potter comes to Liverpool
LIFEextra
It may be coming up to winter, but the summer weather isn’t going anywhere just yet. This picture taken by Conor Allison captures the autumn sun shining yesterday morning.
SHIPSHAPE By HANNAH ROGERS
The world renowned Cammell Laird Ship Repairers has been named as the preferred candidate for a project that would see a £200 million research ship being built in Merseyside. The Birkenhead ship building yard has fought off competition from all over the world, including companies based in the Far East and Europe. Cammell Laird was founded in 1828 and is based on the River Mersey in the Liverpool City Region on the west coast of Britain. The company’s Birkenhead site expands across 130 acres and includes four dry docks, a large
Cammell Laird to win contract for £200m research ship
modular construction hall and extensive covered workshops. It is at the centre of a marine and engineering cluster with easy access to support services and port state authorities. Construction on the state of the art vessel is due to start in November this year and will include high tech gadgets such as robotic submarines and marine gliders. The proposed assembly will also create more than 400 jobs in the area, as well as up to 60 apprenticeships.
Steve Birss, 56, Birkenhead, works in an outlet that caters for the workforce. He said: “It’ll be really good for the area. Any jobs coming to Birkenhead is going to be good for the community and the 60 apprenticeships will be great too. Cammell Laird is a highly skilled place and the young need to learn these skilled jobs.” In January 2015 nearly 1500 people in Birkenhead were unemployed and claiming jobseekers allowance. If Cammell
Laird get confirmation that they have won the contract, it could make a drastic difference to the unemployment rates in the area. When the ship is finished, it will travel to both the Arctic and Antarctic to gather new observations of polar oceans and wildlife. All the marine research will be available to the research community. Cammell Laird was selected by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), with funding supplied through the
Government’s science capital programme. NERC Chief Executive Professor Duncan Wingham, said: “The Natural Environment Research Council funds polar research so that as a nation, we can develop policies to adapt to, mitigate or live with environmental change. This new polar ship will be a platform for a broad range of science, researching subjects from oceanography and marine ecology to geophysics.”
The Director of British Antarctic Survey, Professor Jane Francis, who is in control of the ship, said: “This new research ship will be a tremendous asset to the UK polar science community. Crucially, the ship will have the capability to deploy advanced technologies being developed currently in the UK. These will allow us to capture new ocean and ice data from places that would otherwise be inaccessible. This is a very exciting time for UK polar science.”