As the 2007 Noise Action Week roars into action today (21 May 2007) the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) advises Scottish businesses how to avoid noise nuisance through NetRegs. Sound affects us all and industry noise can represent a statutory nuisance.
Highlands and Islands food and drink producers have attributed £9.2 million of new sales to events and exhibitions organised by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), through its UK Market Development programme. A recent evaluation of the programme commissioned by HIE has demonstrated that bringing together food and drink producers and buyers is an effective way for speciality companies in the Highlands and Islands to do business.
Do you have a project you'd like to complete, but no time or resource to undertake it? Each year over 1000 Shell Step students take on these challenges, for small and medium-sized companies throughout the UK, and achieve outstanding results. Shell Step places second and penultimate year undergraduates, from all academic disciplines, with businesses to deliver real working projects.
Holding centre stage within the historic Dounreay sphere is the unique Goliath crane, one of the first polar cranes in the world. Installed fifty years ago in the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR), the original crane was in need of renovation in order to bring it up to the modern standards required to decommission and dismantle the reactor and ancillary plant inside the dome.
BCS targets SME sector with new category in IT Industry Awards 18 May 2007: BCS is looking for examples of IT excellence from the 4.3 million businesses that make up the SME sector. The organisation has introduced a new category specifically for small to medium enterprises in the BCS IT Industry Awards 2007.
Sainsbury's popular Taste the Difference Meatballs, made from Mey Selections beef in an authentic tomato and smoky bacon sauce with added Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, beat off four other finalists to win the meat and poultry category of the Grocer Own Label Award Excellence Awards for 2007 at the Savoy Hotel, London yesterday. The award follows the product's success as the Best New Meat Product in the Meat Industry Awards in London last year.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has extended two contracts through which all of its new properties are built, after an independent report gave it a five star value-for-money rating. The network's board was told at its public meeting in Thurso today (Tuesday May 15) that the contracts had been awarded in 2004 following a decision the previous year to make HIE's method of property procurement more efficient.
WORKERS REWARDED FOR ZERO ACCIDENT RATE Workers at Dounreay are set to tuck into a free cooked breakfast as a reward for improving the site's safety record. Earlier this year, the site announced it would provide for a free breakfast for every worker whenever the site went 60 consecutive days without an accident that required more than localised first aid.
Dounreay has hosted a visit by delegates from the Ministry of Economy & Central Project Management Agency in Lithuania from 7th-10th May. During their time on site, the group toured a number of facilities being decommissioned, including the Prototype Fast Reactor and former Fuel Cycle Area, and saw how the site manages the waste produced.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) will report on a year of record investment in the Highland economy when it delivers its annual review to the May board meeting on May 15th. Head of strategic planning and research, Alastair Nicolson, will tell board members in Thurso that all primary measure targets were exceeded and significant progress made against key strategic projects in a year that saw the network invest £118m in the regional economy.
An Inverness life sciences company will showcase its business to an influential group of international investors and key biotech companies this month as part of BioEquity Europe 2007 - Europe's largest investment conference for the life sciences sector. IVMD, based in Inverness, develops and manufactures medical devices for near patient testing and monitoring.
THE drive to create a university for the Highlands and Islands has received a major boost from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). The enterprise network this week announced a funding package of nearly £5m over the next three years designed to facilitate specific outputs which UHI Millennium Institute needs to attain to satisfy the Quality Assurance Agency that university title is appropriate.
Head Teachers in Caithness are concerned that local businesses may be approached to sponsor books. The schools know nothing about these approaches by a company selling the books.
Thurso High School is one of eight schools to make it through to the final of the Big Green Challenge. Eight schools from the Highlands and Islands are to battle it out for a coveted place in the final of the region's first debating competition tackling one of the most talked-about subjects of the 21st century - renewable energy.
Summary The March 2007 unemployment figures were released on 14th March 2007. During the month, February 2007 to March 2007, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in Great Britain fell by 1.9%, from 948,577 to 930,094 (18,483 claimants).
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) will be holding its next public board meeting at the Pentland Hotel in Thurso on Tuesday May 15, 2007. Chair for HIE Caithness and Sutherland Pat Buchanan will begin proceedings by welcoming the board to Caithness.
Caithness and sutherland unemploment fell as at March 2007 to 722 claimants for benefit with the percentage dropping for unemployment benfit claimants by 3% between Feb 07 and March 07. The precentage drop between March 06 and March 07 was 11.6%.
Passenger numbers at airports in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland have increased by 7% in the past 12 months to a record total of 1,232,782. Figures released today by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited show that an additional 80,000 passengers have used its 10 airports in the year to 31 March 2007 compared to the previous operating year making it the sixth consecutive year of passenger growth.
Farmers are going to be increasingly dependent upon irrigation to grow their crops along the east coast according to climate change predictions. Some east coast rivers are already over-abstracted and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is concerned that water may run out in some of the small burns which farmers depend on if the current dry weather continues.
Caithness Horizons, the new visitor attraction and community facility that will be housed in the refurbished Thurso Town Hall and Carnegie Library, made its first appearance to the travel trade at Expo 2007 in Edinburgh and received a welcome level of interest from potential buyers. The Centre, which will become the hub for the area and act as a signpost for the many attractions and sites of interest in Caithness, attracted the attention of UK and overseas-based tour operators - as well as the media - who were all interested in receiving a special preview of the project.
