Rooted for the Long Term: How Ørsted Is Part of the North East Lincolnshire Story

Lauren Little, Senior Stakeholder Advisor at Ørsted’s East Coast Hub in Grimsby, talks community investment, offshore wind energy, Horizon Youth Zone, and why she believes Grimsby is doing something remarkable.

There is a story most people in Grimsby already know in outline: Wind turbines on the horizon. A port that never really sleeps. A global energy company that quietly set up home beneath the Dock Tower and never left. But the detail of that story, who is behind it, what drives them, and how deeply they feel connected to this place, is one that is far less often told.

Lauren Little has worked as a Senior Stakeholder Advisor at Ørsted’s East Coast Hub in Grimsby for several years. Before that, she worked in the local authority, which means she has watched North East Lincolnshire from more than one vantage point. She knows the town’s potential and its pressures. She has sat in the meetings where decisions get made and stood in community spaces where the impact of those decisions is felt. She is, in many ways, exactly the kind of person this area needs more of: someone who genuinely believes in Grimsby and is willing to put effort behind that belief.

We sat down with Lauren to hear more about what community means to a company like Ørsted, and what that commitment looks like in practice.

Being Part of the Fabric

When we asked Lauren what community means to Ørsted here in North East Lincolnshire, she did not reach for a corporate answer. She reached for a personal one.

“This is our home and our community where we’re rooted for the long term. We’re part of it, not something separate.”

She describes community not as a category of activity sitting to one side of Ørsted’s work, but as the very context in which all of it happens. The people who live and work across this area are Ørsted’s current employees, their future employees, the friends, families and neighbours of both. Offshore wind is not a visitor industry. It is here for the duration. With six wind farms already operational and more in development, Ørsted’s presence in Grimsby is not temporary. It is generational.

“Offshore wind is here for 25 years plus,” Lauren explains. “Each wind farm has a lifespan of at least that and we’re still constructing and developing projects, so we’re not going anywhere.”

That longevity shapes everything about how Ørsted thinks about its place in the community. Short-term sponsorships and one-off donations are part of the picture, but the bigger commitment is a much longer one: to be genuinely embedded in the life of the town, to grow alongside it, and to make sure that the benefits of a world-leading industry are felt locally.

The Open House and What It Represents

Lauren is a regular attendee at the Our Future North East Lincolnshire Open House, and she speaks about it with real warmth. For her, it is one of the highlights of the year, not because of what it signals, but because of what it does.

“It’s a really good opportunity to get together with the community and hear about all the great things that are going on,” she says. “It helps convene things in a more structured way and think about the future and how bright it is for a place like Grimsby.”

She is particularly struck by the fact that the Open House draws people from outside the area: change-makers and leaders who come specifically to see what is happening here and to learn from it. “We’re not just talking to ourselves about ourselves,” she says. “And I think that’s really powerful.”

“The commitment of leaders in and outside of North East Lincolnshire prioritising the event shows true promise and leadership towards making the place better.”

It is the kind of outside validation that can shift how a community sees itself. When people travel from around the country to learn from what Grimsby is doing, that matters. It becomes part of a new story, one built on pride rather than apology.

Horizon Youth Zone: Believing in Something Before It Existed

Perhaps the investment that best illustrates Ørsted’s relationship with this community is its cornerstone patronage of Horizon Youth Zone. It is a partnership that began not with a formal pitch or a funding strategy, but with a moment of clarity.

The story starts in 2019, when Ørsted hosted an announcement for the second phase of the Greater Grimsby Town Deal at the East Coast Hub. This event announced the commitment to bring a youth zone to Grimsby. Lauren was in the room.

“When I heard them talking about Youth Zone, I knew this was something different,” she says. “This isn’t something ordinary. This isn’t something small. It is significant and needed.”

That instinct was personal as well as professional. Having grown up in Grimsby and worked in the local authority, Lauren understood the gaps that Horizon was designed to fill. The team visited youth zones across the country, in London on dark winter evenings, and came back convinced.

“The room was filled with young people. And I think that was it: we believed in what they were saying. You see it and you’re like: we’ve got to be behind this.”

Ørsted was at the time looking for a legacy project to mark the Hornsea One and Two offshore wind farms, the first to exceed a gigawatt of capacity, described internally as a “man on the moon” achievement. They wanted that milestone to leave something lasting in the community. Horizon Youth Zone became that legacy.

The commitment Ørsted made went beyond what they had originally planned for the project. Lauren is clear that this was not just a funding decision. It was a statement of belief.

“It’s not about just giving money to a project and then it being built. It’s about the lasting partnership.”

Horizon is now open. At the last count, it had over 2,500 members, with approximately 250 young people attending every session. Lauren reflects on what that means simply: “We’ve been waiting for this for six years. Now the doors are open, and people have come and seen the importance of the facility.”

Ørsted Great Grimsby 10K: Bringing the Town Together

Alongside its longer-term investments, Ørsted also sponsors the Great Grimsby 10K, an event now in its eleventh year and one Lauren describes as a genuine fixture in the town’s calendar.

The run came about through relationships, with senior leaders at Ørsted who were genuinely present in the town, listening to what might help, and acting on what they heard. Grimsby had not had a 10K in living memory. Ørsted wanted to change that.

“It’s good for the community. It’s good for wellbeing. It’s good for getting people out there,” Lauren says. “Everyone comes out to support each other, whether you’re running or spectating. It’s a great goal to work towards.”

She is also honest about the fact that events like this serve a dual purpose. Ørsted is not physically visible in the way a high street employer would be. The East Coast Hub is on the docks, beyond security gates and out of everyday sight. The wind farms themselves are far offshore.

“It’s about connecting Ørsted with the town around us,” Lauren explains. “To show that we’ve got this world-leading industry right here on our doorstep, once again, like we used to. We know it’s harder to get that message out there because we can’t physically be seen.”

The Ørsted Great Grimsby 10K helps bridge that gap, putting Ørsted’s name and people visibly on the streets of Grimsby, alongside thousands of local runners, and making the connection between a global industry and the community it is part of feel tangible.

The East Coast Community Fund: Money Shaped by the Community

One of Ørsted’s most significant and sustained investments in the area is the East Coast Community Fund, which launched in 2016 and runs voluntarily, something Lauren is keen to emphasise. This is not a requirement. It is a choice.

The fund distributes £465,000 per year for twenty years. In its first decade, it has already donated over four million pounds to almost 300 community projects across an area stretching from south of Bridlington to the Wash.

What sets it apart is how it was designed. Before a single application was accepted, there was a long period of community consultation to shape the fund’s eligibility criteria, geographical reach and priorities. “This fund has been shaped by them, for them,” Lauren says. “It’s not something that was just decided upon without that consultation.”

Decisions on applications are made not by Ørsted, but by an independent panel of community leaders. “It is over to the community to decide what they need,” Lauren explains. “And what’s really fantastic about that fund is that it can address need over time.”

Grants range from £1,000 to £50,000, and the fund runs two rounds per year. For community groups and organisations in the area, it is a significant source of support, one that has responded to shifting community need over the years, including increased demand for wellbeing and mental health-related projects following the pandemic.

Alongside the main fund, Ørsted also operates a smaller local sponsorship programme, faster-moving and more hyper-local, which has supported projects including the West Marsh Baby Bank, when a leak threatened to close a critical community service, and Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue, helping fund their new facility.

Opening the Doors: The Visitor Centre and Why It Matters

In 2025, over 800 people walked through the doors of Ørsted’s visitor centre at the East Coast Hub. School groups, community organisations, the Women’s Institute, Scout groups, all invited in to see what most local residents never get the chance to experience: inside an offshore wind operation.

“It is our duty to open the doors where we can, safely and in an organised way.” Lauren says. “We want to tell the community about what we’re doing and invite them in and show them, because we know it’s a hidden world.”

You cannot take a community group offshore, but you can show them the control rooms, the vessels, the scale of the operation, and the people who make it all happen. You can inspire young people who might never have considered that a career in this industry was possible or within reach.

WiME and Raising Aspirations: Helping Girls See Themselves Here

One of the most quietly powerful things Ørsted does locally is its work with WiME, Women in Manufacturing and Engineering. The initiative, chaired by Kirsty Clode, brings major Humber employers together to show girls and young women that careers in engineering and energy are open to them, not by telling them, but by showing them.

At careers fairs running twice a year, one on each side of the Humber, Ørsted brings women employees along so that girls can meet real people doing real jobs and ask the questions that matter to them. The atmosphere is deliberately different from a standard careers fair.

“I feel like the girls can open up and ask and engage more,” Lauren says. “We create a psychologically safe space for them to ask the questions that might be on their minds.”

Building on that, Ørsted, alongside Phillips 66, helped develop the Raising Aspirations programme, which partners employers directly with schools to deliver sessions on confidence, role models and vision for the future. This came from a specific observation: when female applications for Ørsted’s apprenticeship programmes arrived, they were excellent, but there were not enough of them.

“Potential is everywhere, but opportunity is not. And that’s why early intervention is important.”

The aim is not simply to recruit more girls into the company. It is to give young women in North East Lincolnshire a clearer sense of what is possible for them, in Ørsted, in the wider supply chain, and beyond.

Almost 700 Jobs and Counting: A Workforce Built for the Region

It is worth pausing on a number Lauren mentions almost in passing: 148. That is the number of different job types currently held at Ørsted’s East Coast Hub in Grimsby. And with almost 700 people working there, the Hub is one of the area’s most significant employers.

“People might think straight away. I don’t really want to go offshore,” Lauren says. “There are so many different roles. There’s media managers, data analysts, commercial roles, financial roles, construction managers, logistics, everything you can imagine.”

And it is not just about Ørsted directly. The wider supply chain means that the economic footprint of the East Coast Hub extends far beyond those almost 700 employees. Vessel crews, engineers, facilities teams, security personnel, many working on site every day but employed by partner companies rather than Ørsted itself.

For anyone looking at career opportunities in North East Lincolnshire, Lauren’s message is clear: this is a young and growing industry that values transferable skills. Experience from other sectors is not a barrier. It is exactly what the industry needs.

A Town That Does Something Remarkable

Ask Lauren about the future of North East Lincolnshire and she does not hesitate. She wants Grimsby to understand what it is achieving.

Hornsea Two, the offshore wind farm built and operated out of this town, which is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest offshore wind farm in the world. Ørsted is now building a project twice its size, Hornsea 3. This is happening here, in this community, run considerably by local people.

“Grimbarians are at the heart of it, and we’re quietly getting on with it, but maybe we need to be shouting louder.”

She talks about identity and about shifting the narrative, about what it means for a town to do something genuinely pioneering. People travel from all over the world to Grimsby to learn how offshore wind is done at scale.

Lauren talks about the friendliness of the place, something that comes up again and again when people visit. A warmth that is not performed but is simply how people are. Someone told her at the Our Future Open House that they love coming to Grimsby because it’s never just a handshake. It’s always a hug.

“It makes you be like: oh yeah, we are really friendly people. There’s good stuff going on here,” Lauren says. “It lifts us out of negativity sometimes, because it might be hard, but we’ve got a little pocket of positivity here in Grimsby.”

To find out more about Ørsted’s community work and the East Coast Community Fund, visit orsted.co.uk. To learn more about Our Future North East Lincolnshire and how to get involved, speak to a member of the team or come along to our next Open House event.