Power move

The £4m building at Yarnton now provides a base for more than 320 power and gas engineers, street lighting, contracting, metering, planning and administration staff.

The company has spent a year constructing the building, which will improve the company's operational efficiency and the service it provides to customers.

As well as quadrupling the space for staff, with capacity to accommodate new recruits, the building incorporates new facilities such as a computerised storm room' which staff will use as an operational nerve centre during severe weather.

And for the first time, there is a centralised storage room for all the equipment and clothing the engineers need on a daily basis.

The building's construction starts a new chapter for the Oxford depot, which dates back to 1926, when the original Wessex Electric Company erected a shed.

Prior to that, company workers operated out of a first floor room in The Grapes pub - now The Turnpike - opposite the current site.

In 1963, a new building was constructed, but the original shed survived until 1971 when it was finally demolished. In 2000, the dated depot building was also demolished, and staff have been working out of temporary buildings until now.

Operations manager Austin Cobb said: "It was time for a much more modern base for our staff. This new building is part of the major investment Southern Electric is making to improve our service in the Oxford area. It has made a huge difference to the way we are able to go about our daily work, and the benefits from this should begin to filter through to our customers. It's also a fantastic working environment."

The Oxford depot maintains around 5,500km of underground networking in the Oxford area, and 4,000km of overhead lines. There are about 193,000 Southern Electric Power Distribution customers in Oxfordshire.

f+z f/pic f-z PLANS have been unveiled for the new £29m cardiac centre at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital which will bring an extra 200 jobs.

The project will provide state-of-the-art facilities for cardiac patients and help treat an additional 2,000 patients each year.

Final details of the cardiac centre - due to open in January - come after the opening of the children's hospital and soon-to-be-completed cancer centre.

The Oxford Heart Centre is being built next to the current cardiac facilities at the hospital and close to the accident and emergency department and the children's hospital.

Publication of images of what the centre will look like have coincided with the latest Healthcare Commission survey, which showed heart surgeons at the trust are performing well.

Belinda Boulton, directorate manager of Oxford Heart Centre, said: "There is no doubt the new centre will save lives.

"The people of Oxfordshire are extremely fortunate to have these kind of facilities on your doorstep. The centre will need 200 new posts over a period of five years."

Staff currently treat 20,000 patients a year in Oxfordshire for heart conditions, but the new centre will enable them to treat an additional 2,000 in-patients - those who are seriously ill.

The total cost of the heart centre is £29.1m, with funding provided by the Department of Health and NHS South Central.

Jacquie Pearce-Jervis, a spokesman for the ORH's Patient Focus Group, said: "It's very exciting news and the Oxford Heart Centre will be one of the leading centres in the country."

A £100,000-a-year post has been created to "inspire and lead the development of Oxfordshire economic vision".

Whoever is appointed as chief executive of Oxfordshire Economic Partnership will be in charge of just six staff, but chairman Frank Nigriello said the partnership's small workforce did not reflect the role s importance.

He said: "We're expecting to hire someone of significant stature who will be able to work with the partners, to identify the bars to economic growth and then to work on projects to reduce those bars, so we can have a sustainable economy.

"We need successful businesses to pay corporation tax, to work in communities and to create jobs and continued employment."

Graham Jones, of business campaign group Rox, said: "A lot of people will see it as being just another bureaucratic body - £100,000 does seem an awful lot of money, but I would reserve judgment until I know what role they are going to play alongside so many other organisations."

Workers believe their ideal salary would be £38,000 a year, saying that would be enough to live a comfortable life.

A survey of 4,500 workers by recruitment firm Jobsite.co.uk found that most would be content to take home under £40,000 a year for the rest of their life.

Based on the current average salary of £25,000, the study showed that workers wanted to earn an extra £13,000 a year.

The ideal figure of £38,000 represented a little over two days work for Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo, or ten minutes work for Wall Street s highest earner yet, John Paulson, said the report.

Two thirds of those questioned believed they would never reach their ideal salary in their current job, with two out of five saying they would continue to move job until they earned more.

More than a quarter of workers claimed never to have had a pay rise, while a third have waited a year or more since their last increase.

Keith Potts, chief executive of Jobsite.co.uk, said: "Far from wanting to be millionaires, Brits have a fairly realistic annual salary in mind that they woukd like to earn.

"The key to negotiating a good salary is having the confidence to show what your skills and expertise are worth.