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New CalMac Islay ferries will not be built in Scotland – STV news

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Two new ferries for Islay will not be made in Scotland after four shipyards from elsewhere were invited to tender for the contract.

More than 30 organisations expressed an interest in taking on the job and 11 entered submissions that Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) said were “rigorously” assessed.

But only four companies, one from Romania, another from Poland and two in Turkey, reached the final stage of the procurement process.

A decision on which shipyard will win the job will be made before the end of March 2022, CMAL said.

The Islay route is one of the busiest services for freight on the Clyde and Hebrides network, and it was decided to contract two new ferries after discussions with Transport Scotland, ferry operator CalMac and communities on the island.

This week CMAL announced that the new vessels will be built at either Damen Shipyard in Romania, Remontowa Shipbuilding in Poland, or one of the Turkish shipyards Sefine Denizcilik Tersanecilik Turizm or Cemre Marin Endustri.

The procurement process for new ferries has come under scrutiny recently because of issues with two vessels from the publicly-owned Ferguson Marine shipyard in Inverclyde.

Holyrood’s rural economy and connectivity committee described the process as a “catastrophic failure”.

New CalMac Islay ferries will not be built in Scotland

For more transport news click here: https://www.scotlandmatters.co.uk/transport-matters/

Sturgeon pushes for independence (again) – The Spectator

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t’s Groundhog Day in Holyrood. Amid criticisms about her administration’s underwhelming ‘Programme for Government,’ Nicola Sturgeon has returned to her favourite hobby house: Scottish independence. Much like ABBA’s reunion, the First Minister combined some new tunes with her greatest hits, declaring that May’s election was an ‘undeniable’ mandate for such a plebiscite by the end of 2023 ‘once the Covid-19 crisis is passed’.

Steerpike is not surprised at Sturgeon’s choice of priorities, preferring to have her civil servants devote their energies to indyref2 rather than letting Scots take their masks off when sat on a train. The SNP and its acolytes have had no compunction in undermining the Union at every opportunity throughout the pandemic; a strategy that has been great for poll numbers but has led to almost half of Europe’s top 20 Covid-19 hotspots being located in Scotland.

Much more noteworthy is the lack of interest in Sturgeon’s announcement. Westminster was admittedly distracted with Boris Johnson’s tax shenanigans but even north of the border there was a far more muted reaction to the First Minister’s pronouncements then her previous statements. The Scottish editions of both the Times and Daily Telegraph for instance relegated the news on their front to a nib; BBC Scotland similarly buried the announcement on its homepage.

Campbeltown wind turbine factory closes permanently – BBC news

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A wind turbine factory in Argyll has been permanently closed, with administrators now selling off equipment used at the site.

Owners CS Wind effectively mothballed the Campbeltown factory, which manufactured offshore and onshore wind farm equipment, in the spring of 2020.

The company said “deteriorating market conditions” had led to a lack of new contracts and declining revenues.

All staff have now either left or been made redundant.

Three-quarters of the 94-strong workforce had already departed in August 2020 with only a handful of staff left running the facility.

The manufacturing plant, located at the Machrihanish Business Park near Campbeltown, was bought by CS Wind, a South Korean firm, in 2016.

At the time it was Britain’s only UK facility for manufacturing onshore and offshore wind towers.

It previously went into administration in 2011 before a partnership between Scottish and Southern Energy and Marsh Wind Technology saved the factory.

After CS Wind failed to secure major work with the Kincardine and Triton Knoll offshore projects in 2019, the majority of the staff were made redundant.

At the time the Unite union called the move a “major blow to Scotland’s renewables manufacturing capacity.”

“Market conditions” are being blamed for CS Wind (UK) being wound up, yet market conditions for wind power have never looked better.

Thousands of towers are required for turbines being planted in the North Sea, with a huge further boost planned in the next 10 years.

Existing onshore windfarms are being renewed after 25 years of torque and tension from generating power.

So there must be other explanations for the repeated failure to make the Campbeltown factory into a success story.

Part of the problem is thought to be the South Korean ownership failing to give the plant the support it needed in the past five years. There’s been a stand-off with Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which provided public funding.

But there is a wider question about the failure to link the renewable power revolution to a manufacturing base in Scotland.

The Scottish government sunk more than £37m in three BiFab yards in Fife and Lewis for fabricating offshore platforms. That also went into administration.

For more environmental fails, click here: https://www.scotlandmatters.co.uk/environment-matters-2/