Illegal migrants used to repair EDF solar farm
Illegal migrants were employed to repair storm damage at one of the country's biggest solar farms, it has emerged.
Home Office Immigration Enforcement officers raided energy giant EDF's Porth Wen solar farm in north Wales after reports that migrants had been hired without work permits to help repair hundreds of damaged solar panels.
The solar farm, on Anglesey, suffered thousands of pounds worth of damage when a storm ripped through the 190 acre site in December.
French-owned EDF Renewables – which runs Porth Wen solar farm – hired logistics company Telsol to carry out the repairs.
Immigration officers who raided the site on March 20 arrested 16 individuals for working without permission at the site. The Home Office said two of the workers were over-stayers in the UK and 14 had outstanding asylum claims.
Following the raid, Telsol was issued with a Home Office referral notice, warning the company that it could be liable to pay a fine of up to £60,000 for each illegal worker.
London-based Telsol, which is run by Omer Ineyici, a 49-year-old Turkish national, is understood to have had around a month left to run on the contract when Immigration Enforcement officers carried out the raid.
EDF Renewables said it was liaising with its contractors to review its processes and 'ensure more stringent measures are in place'.
A spokesman said: 'As a responsible company, EDF Renewables takes its legal obligations seriously and expects all its sub-contractors to comply with the law. In this particular case, EDF Renewables was not aware that the workers hired by our subcontractor may have been working at the site without the required permission. We have fully co-operated with the authorities and provided them with all the necessary information and support.'
Sources on Anglesey said locals had spotted workers they did not recognise heading to the solar farm in cars bought locally and began to suspect they were illegal migrants.
'None of them were able to speak any English, which started ringing alarm bells in the locality,' said one resident.
Another, who asked not to be named, told The Telegraph: 'The guy who had the contract to repair the damage ran a tight ship. He's now looking at a big fine, but no one else would have done the job. It was the middle of winter and conditions were terrible.'
Whitehall sources said people working illegally may be victims of organised gangs responsible for smuggling migrants into the country for jobs in the black economy.
A Home Office spokesman said: 'Organised immigration crime is a multimillion-pound industry, which stretches from the trafficking routes thousands of miles away through which people are brought to our country to the high streets across the United Kingdom where many of those people end up working illegally.
'As part of our plan for change, this government is cracking down on that criminal industry at every level, including stepping up our visits to car washes and other businesses where illegal working is taking place, and increasing our enforcement action both against illegal workers and the people who employ them.'
Rhun ap Iorwerth, member of the Welsh Senedd for Anglesey, spoke of his concern at the situation at Porth Wen. He said: 'There has obviously been a significant failure on behalf of the contractor and sub-contractor in ensuring a rigorous process of due diligence was undertaken prior to hiring workers on the site.'
He said that workers being hired without the necessary work visas was 'very alarming' and that his office has been in contact with EDF 'to better understand how employment law was allowed to be flouted in such a way'.
The Porth Wen solar farm, capable of powering more than 15,500 average UK homes a year, was given planning permission in 2017, in the face of local opposition to a development of that size.
Concerns over the arrests came as The Telegraph revealed that only five people have been convicted of piloting small boats across the English Channel this year, despite more than 6,000 migrants making the journey.
Opening the Government's border security summit last week, Sir Keir Starmer said that 24,000 people who 'have no right to be here' have been returned since Labour took power. Just over 6,300 of these were 'enforced returns', with the rest leaving voluntarily.
Telsol declined to comment.
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