SOUTHAMPTON'S loss looks to be Portsmouth's gain after the city announced it would welcome Vosper Thornycroft with open arms.

Planning permission was granted for the shipbuilders to build an assembly hall and berths at Portsmouth's naval base - leaving up to 1,200 jobs in jeopardy at the Woolston plant.

Members of Portsmouth City Council's planning development control committee voted unanimously to welcome the shipbuilder, despite protests that the buildings would be ugly.

The move could create as many as 1,425 jobs, although it is unclear at this stage if VT workers currently based at Woolston would transfer.

But they may not be employed by Vosper by the time the Pompey yard is up and running unless more contracts come in.

VT issued 90-day redundancy notices to 650 staff and has appealed to the Ministry of Defence to hand over more shipbuilding contracts to provide work for its staff.

It has won the £270 million contract to start work in January 2002 on three 7,000-tonne Type 45 destroyers, but until then there is only a small amount of work completing an order of seven Sandown minehunters.

Workers at Woolston have already been redeployed to other engineering, marine and construction companies in lieu of shipbuilding contracts.

Outlining the application to build a 39-metre high building covering 46,600 square metres, Ports-mouth's control and environment manager John Slater said: "This is excellent news for the city. It is an important application for the economy of Portsmouth."

The only voice of dissent from Portsmouth came from Celia Clark, chairman of Portsmouth Society, who said: "The city really should have a building which it can be proud of. It will be very hard disguising a building this big.''

The society was branded as "irresponsible" by Portsmouth councillor Tony McCarthy. He criticised it for writing to the Environment Secretary asking for the application to be the subject of a public inquiry.

This could have slowed the planning process and possibly have prevented VT from starting its Type 45 programme at Ports-mouth.

Mr McCarthy said: "We have to say 'yes' to this and grab it with both hands. I'm sorry for the folks in Woolston."

English Heritage has commented that it was not consulted about the project and the architectural adviser to Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust said: "While delighted at the possibility of shipbuilding returning to the dockyard, objection is raised to the building's basic and unimaginative design."

A report to the committee noted that camouflage techniques, including geometric and other patterns could be used to overcome the overpowering and monotonous single colour sheet metal.

Permission is conditional. Finer details about materials used, transport and parking have yet to be ironed out. But these are not expected to be major problems.

Councillor Lee Hunt, chairman of the planning development control committee, said: "There is no question of putting obstacles in Vosper Thornycroft's way."

GMB union regional organiser Bob Stokes said he wasn't surprised that Portsmouth Council had granted planning permission.

"We have always felt that it was just a formality - just an issue of going through the motions.

"Our main concern at the moment is whether VT will continue work at all rather than where the work will be done."

He added: "We are not completely opposed to VT expanding its activity into Portsmouth, but we are certainly opposed to closing the Woolston shipyard or reducing its capacity so much that it might as well close down."

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