COMMUNITY groups, residents and businesses are being urged to have their say on plans which could bring more than 10,000 jobs to the county.

The Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has launched a consultation on its Clean Energy Strategy, a plan to put the county at the forefront of the UK’s drive to tackle climate change, both generating green energy in the region, as well as cutting carbon emissions from communities – in turn creating up to 13,000 new green jobs.

The blueprint sets out how Cumbria will make a significant contribution to the UK’s low carbon energy future, building on its current status as a net exporter to the national grid.

Baz Gibson said: "The Office of National Statistics has published data on the green economy which indicates an annual spend of over £200,000 is necessary to support a "green job" work many of these jobs being temporary and many (42%) being elementary low paid jobs. So where does the LEP expect the £2,600,000,000 annual spend to come from to support these jobs?"

Ellsgran said: "With just about every business reducing services because of staff shortages what makes them so sure that the green jobs created will be swamped with applicants.

The observer said: "Does Cumbria have 13,000 people available and looking for new jobs or are they hoping to recruit this amount of people from existing local companies causing staff shortages within their workforce? They could recruit people from other parts of the country but would salaries match the salaries where they are coming from? plus it's expensive to move to another part of the country, done it many times."