THE French power giant alstom looks to have decided not to build a plant for making offshore wind turbines in Scotland, putting extra pressure on the government to attract other manufacturers, the Sunday Herald has learned. The French group, which intends to create a 6MW turbine, is understood to have looked closely over a long period at Scottish ports like Leith and Dundee that are vying to be at the forefront of the coming push to develop offshore wind farms. But several sources, including a senior Scottish official, have said the company is now concentrating on the English east coast, although alstom insists it has yet to make a decision. The loss will be a disappointment to the Scottish Government in a week where the UK Government finally confirmed that it would release ?100 million through the fossil fuel levy for the Scottish renewables industry. Holyrood has so far had to settle for announcing research projects that might later lead to manufacturing commitments by Mitsubishi near Edinburgh, Doosan Babcock near Paisley and Gamesa in Lanarkshire. In contrast, England has secured two manufacturing commitments from Siemens at Humberside and Vestas at Sheerness in Kent. The German and Danish companies are respectively the number one and two wind turbine manufacturers in the world. The Scottish Government is under mounting pressure to secure manufacturers as the industry gears up for the so-called Round Three phase of offshore wind farms in three or four years time. By far the biggest round so far, the size and number of turbines required for what will be much greater water depths and fiercer conditions than the current rounds effectively dictate that the devices are at least assembled and probably also manufactured in the UK. Lewis Macdonald, infrastructure spokesman for Scottish Labour, said: This demonstrates that Scotland is behind in the race for offshore wind and needs to catch up if we are to get a share of the market. We are very well placed because of aberdeen s expertise in oil and gas and deployment in harsh and difficult conditions. Th