Should Newcastle become a manufacturing hub for floating wind farms?

Advocates are calling for Newcastle and the Hunter to seize the offshore wind opportunity with both hands by becoming a manufacturing hub for floating wind farms.

When you look at the numbers, it's easy to understand why they're excited; $10 billion capital expenditure, 3000 direct jobs during peak construction and 200 to 300 permanent local jobs.

Newcastle could be the only place on the East Coast with the unique opportunity to make sure the multi-billion-dollar knock on effect of the offshore industry stays entirely local.

To pull off such a coup, a city would need the following; a deep water harbour (tick), a working port with lots of available space (tick, tick) and a skilled workforce looking to transition into a new industry (tick, tick, tick).

Aside from constructing many of the parts to build and maintain the hundreds of floating windmills off the coast for the Hunter offshore zone, the Newcastle hub could manufacture parts for other developments, like the one off the Illawarra coast.

Of course there are environmental concerns about offshore wind, particularly around Port Stephens, and it's worth noting the Hunter offshore wind zone stretches all the way down to the Central Coast

Without diminishing the legitimate community concerns, I have yet to come across a resource development - be in mines, wind or solar - that hasn't been met with some local resistance.

The Hunter has survived and thrived living alongside coal mines for more than a century. Perhaps we can do the same with offshore wind.

Hunter Means Business is a weekly column proudly flying the flag for the region's economic sector. Got a tip? Email jamieson.murphy@newcastleherald.com.au