Writing on his own Welwyn Hatfield Forum, Grant Shapps has provided statistics to rebut the notion of 'shelf stackers' replacing the skilled workforce that once designed and built aircraft on what is now the Hatfield Business Park.

One forum respondent mentioned that the De Havilland / BAe aircraft manufacturer once employed '7,500' and commented: "...proper, permanent, full time, mostly skilled jobs, have been replaced by.....?"

But Mr Shapps replied: "I was surprised by the figures too, but it certainly is true. What's more your assertion about the kind of jobs on the Hatfield site being of a lower quality/skill is actually untrue.

Jobs on the site easily add up to more than the 7500 previously employed at peak in aerospace.  A rough tot up would include:

•University lecturers (not low end jobs), other University staff and incubator businesses and research companies based at the University.
•Everything Everywhere - I think they employ a couple of thousand people there currently. Mostly very high end.
•Computacenter - 1,000 jobs. Mostly well paid high end. This company runs the computer systems and support for the likes of M&S and other household names. This is the world HQ for this company and they employ 12,000 people in total worldwide.
•Ocado - you might think this is all shelf picking staff but you'd be wrong. This is a logistics miracle to go and see. This company employs engineers, mechanics, maths and mathematicians experts, computer scientists, etc, as well as manual labour.
•Eisai (pharmaceutical) - around 500 people - European/African HQ where new drugs are both researched and manufactured. They've invented an anti-epilepsy drug here in Hatfield which is getting global approval and is being manufactured here in Hatfield and exported around the world. These are certainly very high end science jobs!
And there are several other businesses like DHL and more moving in like Pitney Bowes"

However, the major difference between then and now is that the new companies have often tended to either bring their workforce with them or don't employ anywhere near the amount of local people that the aircraft company did.

Furthermore the aircraft company was a massive community partner to the people of Hatfield, unlike any of the new firms that have now set up here.