JUST days before it shut its facilities in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight at a cost of 625 jobs, the Government has announced £6m in funding for Vestas Wind Systems.

The firm, which is currently facing the second week of a sit-in by workers protesting the closure plans, could benefit from up to £10m in grants to be made available for firms to develop offshore wind technology.

The £6m offer to Danish owned Vestas, subject to agreement on “suitable grant offer conditions”, is to create a small research and development base on the Island.

Around 25 workers are continuing with their sit-in at the plant at Newport on the Isle of Wight in a bid to stop the factory closing, together with a sister facility in Southampton, on Friday.

Dozens of climate change and environmental activists have set up a camp outside the site in support of the workers who insisted that they were determined to carry on with the occupation.

The owners of the factory are planning to take the protesters to court on Wednesday under moves to seek a possession order to stop the occupation.

The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said it will give legal assistance to the workers and also called for talks with Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband to try to save the factory.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow called today for a show of strength from trade unionists and environmental campaigners at a series of demonstrations being planned this week, adding: “I would urge all trade unionists and environmental campaigners to make every effort to step up the campaign for the Vestas workforce in what will be a crucial week for their campaign to stop the closure of the factory.

“It’s scandalous that the company are threatening to physically drag the workers out of the factory this week and we need to send a message loud and clear that they have massive support for their actions both here in the UK and around the world.

“The Vestas workers are not criminals. The criminals are the companies who think that they have the right to destroy jobs with no regard to the long-term damage that they will inflict on our communities.”

One of the workers occupying the factory said: “We are trying different ways of saving the factory and have suggested to Vestas that they make smaller turbines here which would be more suitable to the UK.

“We have also sent a series of questions to Ed Miliband and await his reply with interest.”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change said the factory did not make turbines for the UK market, adding that cash was not the issue. Turbines manufactured at the plant were shipped to the US where the company had now opened a facility to serve that market.

Energy and climate change secretary Ed Miliband said: “The money for the development of offshore wind manufacturing will help us generate green jobs on top of our success as the leading country in the world for the generation of offshore wind.

“Alongside these proposals, we are reforming planning laws, finding new ways of working with local communities and are determined to persuade people that we need a significant increase in onshore wind as part of the UK's future energy mix.