Week Commencing 1 December 2014 Energy & Business services: SSE continues to progress its programme to build out the Caithness-Moray electricity Grid project. Work has started on the major High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) converter station at Spittal, and SSE's Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission has this week awarded a £460M contract to ABB for the design, engineering, supply and commissioning of the overall system.
Officers from Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will be attending Highland Council Ward Forum Meetings over the coming weeks. Members of the public are encouraged to attend the local meetings and have their chance to comment on the priorities for community safety in their community.
Week Commencing 24th November 2014 Energy & Business services: Delighted to meet up this week with Dan Pearson of the MeyGen project as he gave an update on progress with the project to Caithness Councillors in Wick. It was good to hear that contracts for onshore works are now in place, and that works will be taking place over the winter at the onshore site near Gills.
Week Commencing 17 November 2014 Energy & Business services: A representative from a large engineering company visited the area this week, and was able to see at first hand the range of companies, facilities and opportunities available in the area. We had an extremely productive discussion on oil & gas and renewables opportunities.
Weekly update from CNSRP - week commencing 10th November Energy & Business services: Andritz Hydro Hammerfest has this week confirmed Meygen's order for three of its 1.5MW tidal devices, as part of the first phase of deployment for the tidal site in the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth. The project reached its financial closure in September this year, with the news that local company JGC Engineering had secured a major supply contract for the devices.
Scrabster Harbour Trust (UK) has taken delivery of a new harbor tug / workboat, a Damen Stan Tug 1606. The vessel, named Highlanders, will replace its current workboat which was built in 1976.
Date: 21 Nov 2014 The Eighth Annual General Meeting of the North Highland Regeneration Fund is to be held on Friday 21st November 2014, at the Pentland Hotel, Thurso from 11am. The scheduling for the AGM will be as follows: Approve the minutes of the 2013 Annual General Meeting Receive the Report of the Directors and the Audited Accounts for the year ended 31st March 2014.
Week Comencing 3 November 2014 Energy & Business services: SSE has this week agreed to sell part of its stake in the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd development to Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP). SSE will now own 50% of BOWL, with CIP owning 25% and Repsol continuing to own the remaining 25%.
Week Commencing 27th October 2014 Energy & Business services: Following much recent work by HIE's local team, especially Roy Kirk and CNSRP partner secondees June Love (from DSRL) and Lindsay Foord (from Highland Council), this week saw a visit by oil & gas companies to Caithness. It was good to see more than twenty representatives from a range of companies, who were greeted by Cllr Gail Ross, Highland Council's Civic Leader for Caithness.
North Highland Area Commander - Chief Inspector Iain MacLelland Aberdeen born Chief Inspector, Iain MacLelland, was promoted to Area Commander for the North Highland area last month, taking over from Chief Inspector Ross MacKillop. With family connections to Skye and the Western Isles, the opportunity to relocate to the Highland capital was gladly seized by Iain and his family last month.
Police Scotland advises motorists to be prepared for bad road conditions. Prepare for the winter by keeping your vehicle well maintained before you take to the road.
As of Friday 10 October 2014, nineteen new Police Scotland recruits will be completing their final week of training at the Highland and Islands Division Police Headquarters in Inverness. The recruits have spent 12 weeks at the Scottish Police College in Tulliallan, undertaking intense training in variety of areas including learning general policing duties, legislation, traffic management and undertaking physical fitness assessment.
At around 01:30hrs on Wednesday 7th october 2014 there was a small fire in the PFR sodium tank farm. The Dounreay Fire Brigade was called immediately and the area was made safe.
Week commencing 29th September. Energy & Business services: A very successful event was held in Aberdeen this week as part of the ongoing delivery of the Inward Investment Marketing Plan for Caithness & North Sutherland (see communications below for details).
The Caithness & North Sutherland Fund has awarded over £65K at its latest grant assessment round. The funding has been granted to five community/voluntary groups towards projects that will benefit people living in the Caithness & North Sutherland area.
Chief Constable Sir Stephen House has approved the recommendation of the Armed Policing Monitoring Group that the national standing firearms authority should continue. In addition, having listened to concerns expressed by politicians and some members of the public and having assessed the current operational challenges faced by Police Scotland, the Chief Constable has directed that firearms officers attached to Armed Response Vehicles will now only be deployed to firearms incidents or where there is a threat to life.
Pre-qualification to find a contractor to build a new national nuclear archive in Wick has commenced, it has been announced. The total cost of the new archive is in the region of £17 million.
Week Commencing 22 September 2014 Energy & Business services: Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd (MORL) has announced the installation of a met mast at its large offshore wind site in the Moray Firth, marking another step in its project to develop the site which lies around 22km off the Caithness coast. As previously reported here, MORL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Wick Harbour Authority regarding potential future use of Wick harbour.
Two day multi-agency operation to combat doorstep crime carried out in Inverness and Fort William. As part of ongoing efforts to help keep people safe from doorstep crime and its associated criminal activity, on Wednesday 24 September and Thursday 25 September 2014, officers from Police Scotland, VOSA, SEPA and Highland Council Trading Standards, carried out a high visibility operation in both Inverness and Fort William.
Period 25 August - 15 September 2014 Energy & Business services: Tidal energy plans for the Pentland Firth have received a massive boost with news that financial closure (UK leads marine energy revolution as world's largest tidal stream project agrees investment to begin construction in Scotland | MeyGen) was reached for Phase 1 of the build out of Atlantis resources' Meygen site in the Inner Sound of the Firth. Support for this has come from CNSRP partners HIE and Scottish Government (via the Renewable Energy Investment Fund) as well as The Crown Estate and the Department of Energy & Climate Change.