THE promise of hundreds of jobs if a successful bid to develop the former VT ship building site at Woolston gets the go-ahead is welcome indeed.

And it would be churlish to question, some might say, a multi-million-pound development at the site which has lain idle for several years since the demolition of the huge ship building yards that were for so long a feature of industrial enterprise on Southampton’s water’s edge.

However, we should not be mistaken in realising that the hope of developing the site – and raising £50m in Government grants – to establish a fibreglass-building industrial complex, while a boost to the city region, marks a move away from ambitions to return to maritime engineering at Woolston.

Original plans had been for the site to maximise on its location and attract boat or ship builders to the region. Such a move on such a vast and prominent site would have provided an anchor for the city region as a maritime powerhouse.

Although the new proposal would indeed maximise the contact with the sea for easy shipping of products and materials, it would appear to be an admission that the Woolston site will no longer spearhead Southampton’s return to large scale ship or boat manufacturing, at least for now.

While this paper then welcomes the project for Woolston and hopes the bid to Government for support proves fruitful, we cannot help but feel the city’s maritime heritage and future sea-based industrial base has been watered down.