Masterplan TO Revive ‘Sleeping Giant’ Fabrication Yard
A multi-million pound masterplan has been put together to regenerate a ‘sleeping giant’ fabrication yard and potentially create hundreds of skilled jobs in Scotland’s west Highlands. The massive Kishorn yard and dry dock has been earmarked for a key potential role in the imminent offshore wind turbine construction boom and the emerging wave and tidal generation industry.
The two-phase, £11.75 million Kishorn Port Masterplan has been drawn up by a joint venture of national and local businesses. Meanwhile, a Scottish Government report has confirmed the yard as a national priority for commercial redevelopment to supply manufacturing, assembly, fabrication and other logistics for offshore renewables. And the report (National Renewables Infrastructure Plan, or NRIP) has confirmed that Kishorn can be brought to readiness for less investment than the other ten prime sites it identifies.
The two businesses behind the redevelopment plan are the national quarry products and construction materials company Leiths, and west highland-based transport and logistics business Ferguson Transport.
The companies, who have existing quarrying and freight shipping business operations at Kishorn, have created Kishorn Port Limited and acquired a mix of ownership and rights to its range of facilities, including its dry dock, 26 hectares of hardstanding, slipway and four deepwater quays.
The largely dormant Wester Ross facility, created more than 30 years ago to build super-sized oil and gas platforms, once saw the construction of the world’s largest man-made moveable object – the 600,000 tonne Ninian oil platform – and later the huge concrete caissons to form the base for the Skye Bridge.
The NRIP report, produced by Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, stresses the need for renewables candidate ports to ensure good resources, including quaysides, hardstanding and utilities like power and water, are in place for strong industry demand within three years or sooner. It cites Kishorn as a priority, in its own right and as a core part of a wider Scottish ‘West Coast Cluster’ of ports carrying out manufacturing and other operations.
Kishorn Port director Alasdair Ferguson said:”Kishorn is a sleeping giant of a manufacturing and service hub for renewables, with the potential to create hundreds of skilled jobs for the west highlands in sectors like engineering, fabrication and transport. And it’s a light sleeper too – because of huge investment in the past, the initial estimated cost to restore the infrastructure – in phase one of our masterplan – is just £2.75 million, compared to between £5million and £65 million for the other nominated sites around Scotland.”
Fellow director Simon Russell, who is chief executive of Leiths, said:”We are delighted that our own expert report has shown that Kishorn Port’s redevelopment is not only feasible but is highly cost-effective compared to other sites, despite the greater area of accessible industrial land, dry dock and deepwater access. We can now confidently take the project to market in the knowledge that we could beat the NRIP report’s three-year infrastructure readiness target by more than half.”