Dounreay and Highlands and Islands Enterprise Working Together

4th July 2012

As the opportunities for renewable energy increase in the North of Scotland, the lead partner in the Dounreay site, Babcock, announces its continued support to bring jobs into the area.

The secondment of June Love, Dounreay, to support Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) activities in the sectors of Energy and Business Services demonstrates a real partnership working between the private and the public sectors.

This follows the successful secondment of Babcock's Simon Coles whose secondment finished in June 2012.

The secondment is to support HIE in its mission to bring new jobs to the area and to grow inward investment opportunities.

June will be working closely with local partners and other government agencies including Scottish Development International. She will also lead on the recently established Caithness Ambassadors programme. This programme enables business leaders to highlight the commercial opportunities that the area has to offer to their contacts. June will follow up with these leaders and is also looking to grow the number promoting the opportunities in Caithness.

The secondment is for a year and June hopes she will be able to capitalise and maximise on the work that Simon has done bringing some additional structure and momentum in the delivery of inward investment activities.

June has worked at Dounreay for over 30 years and manages the Community Relations Department as well as providing support to the site's socio-economic activities. She will be seconded 50 per cent of her time to HIE and is looking forward to the challenge. She said: "Simon has done a great job building up contacts and helping to attract business interest to the area. I'm looking forward to building on the good work that Simon has started and hopefully will help to make a difference in the longer term."

Roy Kirk, HIE Area Manager, added: "The secondment arrangement has proved valuable in supporting the inward investment activities for the area and we are delighted that Dounreay has agreed to second June to the HIE team to continue that support."

Roger Hardy, Dounreay's Managing Director said: "We are delighted to continue our support to HIE. We are committed to working in partnership with the local economic agencies and June brings great strengths to this task. She also has the ability to reach back into the site's Socio-Economic team as well as the parent bodies, such as Babcock team."

June works with a number of local organisations and has been involved with the Caithness and North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership since its inception in 2007.