I asked Aberdeen residents about GB Energy – and one thing was clear
Labour's flagship General Election policy has been cast into doubt since it was first announced. In September, the Prime Minister told Scottish Labour supporters that GB Energy would have its headquarters in Aberdeen, with two additional sites being set up in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Questions have been raised about what GB Energy actually sets out to do, the number of staff employed there, whether it will really have its own headquarters, as well as the number of jobs it will create in Scotland.
READ MORE: UK Government to increase presence in Scotland with new 'energy campus'
So, I headed to Aberdeen to see what people really thought about GB Energy being based in their city.
But when I got there and started asking around, one thing became very clear: Barely anyone knew what I was on about.
Most people looked at me with suspicion and said some variation of: 'What's GB Energy?'.
'I've got no clue what you're talking about when you say GB Energy,' one woman told me.
'It sounds like it could be Great Britain Energy or Great British or something but I don't know.'
One man bluntly told me he hadn't heard of GB Energy, but still tried to guess what it was: 'Something to do with wind, is it?'
READ MORE: Labour 'wasted' thousands on GB Energy logo blunder, documents show
While GB Energy was 'a completely new name' to one man, he told me that he understood there was a 'resistance' in Aberdeen towards transitioning away from oil and gas.
'Aberdeen had the chance of becoming the centre of renewables for the UK, but there seems to be a lot of resistance to that,' he said.
Those who had heard of GB Energy didn't seem to think very highly of it. Several people I talked to had 'plenty of thoughts, none of them airable,' as one man told me.
Residents weren't hopeful about the promises made about GB Energy, such as Labour's General Election pledge that it would create 1000 new jobs in Scotland – which the organisation's boss said earlier this year could take as long as '20 years'.
'It's not really produced anything at all for the area, there's zero actual benefits as far as I can see,' one man told me.
He claimed: 'They keep going on about a transition but there are no jobs in wind, it's that simple.'
One woman said she had heard about GB Energy because she follows the news, but that she 'didn't know much'.
'I suppose it's about trying to understand, what is it there to deliver? That's a bit unclear,' she added.
READ MORE: Labour to put 'patriotic' Union flag-inspired logo on Government-funded solar panels
I also spoke with two people who worked in the energy sector, both of whom weren't optimistic about what GB Energy would do – the terms 'irrelevant', 'publicity' and 'false promises' were thrown my way.
A man who worked in the oil industry said: 'It feels a bit irrelevant, like it's brought nothing. There's been a lot of false promises. I don't think it'll live up to the narrative that it's pushing.
'Working in the oil industry, I have a vested interest in this. I would have expected it to have been something that would have helped with the transition.
'We understand that there needs to be a transition, but it feels like it's just been a bit of publicity.'
A woman who also works in the energy industry told me: 'I've heard a lot of the political side of it. I think it coming to Aberdeen is probably great for jobs, but it's a bit of a pawn in a wider scheme to keep other countries happy.'
When asked if she believed any progress had been made with GB Energy, she replied: 'No, not really, it got announced and then nothing else.'
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