The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has welcomed a short-term concession by the Home Office to new UK immigration rules concerning seafarers joining vessels involved in the offshore wind industry, but said longer-term concerns remain.
The concession runs until 21 October, after which new rules will come into place that IMCA said deviate from “decades of common practice” and are “causing real operational difficulties”.
IMCA said it would “encourage the Home Office to reach out to industry in order that its new application of the legal framework relating to seafarers can be introduced in a way that is consistent with the operational needs of industry”.
This needs to be done in order to avoid the risk of “damaging key projects that are critical to delivering renewable energy capacity in the UK”, the association said.
“The success of such projects are schedule, technology, and safety dependent, and a tapered adoption of the new approach to immigration rules would be welcome in order to give industry certainty and stability in planning future investments,” it said.
Image: reNEWS
Immigration concern for UK offshore
IMCA welcomes short-term fix, but long-term issues remain with new rules
By EBS