Caithness & North Sutherland
REGENERATION PARTNERSHIP
February 2010
Caithness Engineering
Plans for Caithness companies to benefit from larger-scale
engineering projects have moved a step closer with the formation
of an alliance of seven local engineering services companies to
form Caithness Engineering.
JGC’s Stephen Sutherland added: “Pooled resources and
complementary skills mean that Caithness Engineering can offer
a better, more efficient service to local, national and international
clients.”
The companies involved are Arch Henderson, G&A Barnie, Gow’s
of Lybster, JGC, MM Miller, Nicolson Engineering Services (NES)
and Nuvia. Martin Nicolson of NES explained that the move was
expected to give companies a new resource for delivering largescale engineering and civil engineering jobs within Caithness and
throughout the UK.
CNSRP’s programme manager Eann Sinclair said: “As
our economy diversifies away from its current reliance on
decommissioning opportunities at Dounreay it becomes
increasingly important that locally-based companies are in a
position to benefit from opportunities as they arise. Local partners
such as the Highland Council, HIE and DSRL are working with
companies to help this process, but it is especially encouraging
that businesses are taking the initiative.”
He said: “Caithness Engineering will provide clients with a
transparent and open alliance to deliver the skills and technology
needed to complete major engineering works.”
The companies have now launched a website at
www.caithnessengineering.com
Engineering capabilities
HIE and Caithness Chamber of Commerce is working
with a group of local companies and organisations
to create marketing materials showing the area’s
capabilities to attract work from developing markets
such as marine energy in the Pentland Firth, nuclear
decommissioning in the UK and overseas, oil and gas in
areas such as the emerging west of Shetland fields and
abroad.
The material will bring together information on the
wide range of services and experience available within
the area, and will highlight key infrastructure such as
harbours, business space, engineering expertise and
transport connections.
Fiona Macpherson, HIE’s inward investment executive
said: “HIE recognises the value to our area of having
information like this available in as accessible a way
as possible, so we’re working with the Chamber of
Commerce and local businesses to ensure that it is
produced promptly and in a professional manner. With
many marine energy developers and potential bidders for
the Dounreay PBO contract currently looking at our area
this is the ideal time to produce materials.”
Trudy Morris, chief executive of Caithness Chamber of
Commerce said: “Many of our businesses are at the
forefront of technology, offering first class service and
products within a range of industry sectors. Marketing
material such as this will enable us to promote this
business capability, service and expertise to a wider
audience in a concise and consolidated way enabling
prospective buyers/investors a complete overview of
what the area has to offer.”
Escape Business
Technologies opens
new office
Aberdeen-based Escape Business Technologies has launched
a new office near Thurso and is expecting to recruit three
additional staff in the next 18 months.
The new office will operate as both a network operating centre
(NOC), responsible for the development of a £100,000 network
monitoring tool designed to further improve efficiency of remote
maintenance activities of the Escape Group, and a northern
business unit looking to support potential clients in the area.
The office will be staffed by two of Escape’s existing employees,
Anthony Wicks, NOC manager, who is relocating north and a
newly created position recently filled by Greg Beverage. Both
employees are from Caithness.
Director of Escape Mike Bain, who is originally from Thurso,
explained the expansion: “The potential renewable energy work
in the north of Scotland, along with the high calibre of available
staff in the area has resulted in the development of this office in
Caithness. Within the group we currently employ five engineers
from Caithness and it’s great to open something in my home
town. The hope is to grow this business unit over the next few
years, and provide some enterprise and advanced trained
personnel to help businesses
in the area.”
Escape is provider of business
technology solutions offering
IT infrastructure consultancy
and outsourced IT solutions
to both UK and International
companies.
Pentland Firth Marine Energy Route Map
Public sector efforts to harness the opportunities offered
by marine energy have taken another step forward with the
production of a draft Pentland Firth Marine Energy “route map”.
The plan is being led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE),
the area’s economic development agency. It aims to set out the
means by which the north’s communities might capitalise on
the economic benefits from the emerging multi-million pound
wave and tidal industry currently focused on the Pentland Firth
and Orkney waters.
Calum Davidson, HIE’s head of key industries, said: “As
potential impact of the emerging wave and tidal industry in the
north of Scotland is now becoming clearer, there is a need for
a more detailed local focus for HIE, and our key partners in
Caithness and Orkney. We are taking the national ambitions
and plans for wave and tidal energy, and applying them to the
Pentland Firth area.
“The draft Pentland Firth Marine Energy route map details
our ambitions and plans, and gives a realistic assessment of
where we can expect employment and business growth. It also
highlights where we need to concentrate our efforts over the
next few years. However it’s still very much a draft, and HIE is
keen that as many people and organisations in Caithness and
Orkney get the chance to give us their thoughts and comments
on it.”
The development of the route map has also been welcomed
in Caithness, where the main public agencies have joined
forces as the Caithness and North Sutherland Regeneration
Partnership (CNSRP) to accelerate the local economy’s
move away from its current dependence on the nuclear
decommissioning industry.
CNSRP programme manager Eann Sinclair said: “The
development of marine energy in the Pentland Firth is a huge
opportunity for our area. It is good to see HIE taking this
initiative to help exploit these opportunities. With key milestones
such as announcements on power line upgrades and seabed
licence awards either awarded or due in the coming weeks
this is the right time for the project partners to set out detailed
ambitions for capturing economic benefit.”
The Royal National Mod (Am Mòd Nàiseanta
Rìoghail) comes to Caithness
Local organisers are working hard on plans for a major influx of visitors to Caithness
for the Royal National Mod which is to be held in the area in October 2010. The Mod is
a week-long celebration of the Gaelic language, music and culture, and has been held
annually in Scotland since 1892. It is now one of Scotland’s premier cultural festivals,
attracting thousands of competitors and spectators to over 160 competitions and a full
festival fringe programme of events. The Mod has never been held in Caithness before.
The local organising committee have successfully attracted grant funding from the NDA
(£60,000)and the Highland Council-managed European LEADER programme (£40,000)
to support the local costs of staging the event, whilst Highlands & Islands Enterprise
has confirmed £50,000 towards the overall costs of the event. North Sutherland native
Carol-Anne Mackay has been appointed as Mod Event Officer, working with the local
committee to ensure that events leading up to and during the Mod are successful.
Carol-Anne said: “We are hoping the whole community gets behind the programme of
events and comes out to support them. A successful Mod can also help promote the
area as a great place to visit at any time of the year. While my job is to promote the Mod I
hope that we will also be able to provide a lasting tourism legacy for the future.”
Raymond Bremner, convener of the local organising committee, welcomed the funding
boost: “We’re delighted that the funders have seen the value to the area from a major event like the Mod. Since this is the first time the
Mod has come so far north we want to make sure that the thousands of visitors will go home remembering the quality of our Caithness
welcome and the quality of all the shops, hotels, restaurants and bars we hope they use whilst here. Previous Mods have made major
economic impacts on their host communities, and we want the Caithness Mod to have at least the same impact in October.”
National Nuclear Archive update
The UK’s first national Nuclear Archive is due to be built in Wick
by 2013. The timescale was confirmed after it was announced
that award-winning Edinburgh architects Reiach and Hall
have been commissioned to design the facility which will be
constructed on land near Wick Airport.
The building will house up to 30 million digital records, papers
and photos covering the history of the UK’s civil nuclear
industry since the 1940s. The two-storey facility will include the
existing extensive archives held at Dounreay and at the UKAEA
headquarters at Harwell in Oxfordshire, and will also provide a
new home for the Highland Council-run North Highland Archive.
It is expected that around 20 staff will be based there.
The building is likely to incorporate a temperature-controlled
warehouse of between 2000 and 3000 square metres and
provide 1000 to 2000 square metres of office space, containing
reading rooms and visitor facilities.
Landward Caithness councillor David Flear was on the judging
panel which selected Reiach and Hall as the architects.
Also included was local peer Lord Maclennan of Rogart - an
honorary Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in
Scotland (RIAS) - and international architect Kathryn Findlay, of
Ushida Findlay.
Cllr Flear said: “I am convinced we have chosen a firm of
architects which will create a new landmark for Caithness and
a building of which we can all be proud. This is an important
initiative which will deliver jobs and boost the local economy.”
The news was welcomed by local community councillor Doreen
Turner who said it would be “brilliant for the town and for
Caithness. This project will create jobs first and foremost and
will help attract people to the town and to the county in general,
and that has to be a good thing,” she said.
Mrs Turner hoped that local contractors would be involved
in building the archive and paid tribute to those people who
helped get it to Wick. “This is great news and a good start for
the new year,” she added.
Coreen Campbell, the chair of the Royal Burgh of Wick
Community Council, also would like to see local companies
being involved in the prestigious project.
“I would hope that as many local firms as possible would
be used on this facility as that would benefit the county as a
whole,” she said.
“It is quite an honour for this national nuclear archive to be sited
in Caithness and I would just like to say well done to everyone
who played a part in getting this facility here.”
She also felt the creation of the archive could benefit Wick
Airport, which may see an increase in its passenger numbers.
Randall Bargelt, Regional Director of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Authority (NDA), commented: “This is a UK
facility which will be housed in a building of international quality,
a new asset for the Wick community and a hugely important
store of history and knowledge.”
Neil Gillespie, director of Reiach and Hall, which won the RIAS
Andrew Doolan Best Building in Scotland Award in 2007 for the
Pier Arts Centre in Stromness, Orkney, said: “We are absolutely
thrilled to have been selected as architects for the National
Nuclear Archive and the Caithness archive in Wick. There are
relatively few projects of this quality at present. We are aware
how fortunate we are. The project has everything - a really
interesting and demanding brief and it is located in the North,
one of the most inspirational areas of Scotland.”
David Dunbar, president of RIAS, which managed the selection
process stated: “We are delighted to be involved with such a
major UK commission. The selection process was very fair and
meticulous and will, I am sure, result in a fine building.”
Manufacture/ export of ROV launcher
A Caithness company completed the fabrication
and export of important subsea equipment recently.
Four large steel sections of what will be the launch
mechanism for Remote Control Vehicles (ROVs)
used for subsea inspection and maintenance were
transported south from Caithness by road to Hull for
onward shipping to Rotterdam.
The steel frames and rails were fabricated at JGC
Engineering’s facility at Harpsdale for Aberdeenbased Subsea 7. They were then taken to JGC’s
T3UK facility at Janetstown and fitted with hydraulic
pipework, electrical equipment and winches.
The two launch trolleys which measure 9m x 4m are
to be installed in Subsea 7’s new pipelaying vessel
Seven Pacific currently being built in the Dutch port.
A team of 15 staff were involved in the works over a
period of four months.
JGC operations director Stephen Sutherland said
the £750,000 order is the biggest the firm has
carried out for the subsea market to date.
“We’re delighted to have won this job – it is part of
JGC’s drive to diversify business away from reliance
on work from the Dounreay Nuclear Plant. We are
also looking at prospects in the fledgling marine
energy industry proposed in the Pentland Firth. We
have had already visits from companies involved
with marine energy and it is an area of work we
would like to get involved in.”
IT Connectivity
Householders and businesses across Caithness and north
Sutherland will benefit from a project to provide improved
access to broadband.
Following talks with the Scottish Government to identify rural
areas needing improvements, BT has already started work
on upgrading telephone exchanges at Durness, Gillock,
Lyth, Tongue, Berriedale, Kinbrace and Westerdale. The
exchanges are all operating at or approaching full capacity
for broadband provision.
Due to high broadband take-up, a number of telephone
exchanges in rural areas of Scotland have not been able
to accommodate new broadband users for some time
because of capacity constraints. The Scottish Government
announced in September that it was working with BT to
agree an upgrade programme by looking at areas most in
need. Following completion of this work, BT has already
started work on the upgrade programme and expects the first
upgrades to be operational by March 2010. The upgrading of
exchanges was identified as a high priority in the Caithness &
North Sutherland Action Plan.
Learn more at:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/NewsReleases/2009/12/09142338
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
Eann Sinclair
Programme Manager
Caithness & North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership
T3UK, Janetstown, Thurso KW14 7XF
Telelphone: 01847 896834
Email: [email protected]
Iona Gunn
Administrator
Caithness & North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership
Telephone: 01847 890017
Email: [email protected]
www.cnsrp.org.uk