Arnish Fabrication Yard

This is the latest entry in the Lighthouse Blog, to be published on Monday.
The Arnish Fabrication Yard is a heavy industry unit; it features frequently in my pictures, as it is directly across the water from where I'm staying. It started life as a fabrication yard for oil rigs. After closure, it was asset stripped, but recently revitalised for making wind turbines.

News came through late on Friday afternoon that the windturbines being produced at the Arnish Yard are being shipped over to Denmark for completion. Although Comhairle nan Eilean Siar [Western Isles Council] has bailed the Yard out with an injection of cash earlier this summer, confidence by clients must have suffered a blow nonetheless. It is thought that another 16 turbines, in production for a windfarm in Holland, will be removed this Saturday.

This sounds to me, a layman in business, like extremely bad news. Removal of assets by clients usually precedes the relevant business being placed under administration or worse, bankruptcy. I can justifiably be accused of being a cynic, but I do find my cynicism borne out by events as they unfold after my postings. As I commented on my previous posting on the Yard, the only thing that is being fabricated at Arnish is unsubstantiated promises of continuity.

By all accounts, this is yet another chapter in the boom and bust saga that is Arnish. The place had a decent orderbook by the start of the summer, with three projects (Denmark, Holland and a small project in the Arnish Moor). If the two overseas projects are being withdrawn, then the future looks not just bleak, but positively black. I understand that companies who previously registered an positive interest in the Yard are reconsidering their positions.

If the Arnish Yard closes down altogether, after completing the windturbine towers for the local project, then one of the pillars under the Lewis Wind Power project (I'm talking about the 190 turbines between Port Nis and Stornoway) as well as the Beinn Mhor Power project has collapsed. These two windfarms, totalling 243 turbines, were to be produced at Arnish, generating hundreds of jobs.

I think this is a screaming disgrace.

Being produced at Arnish aren't just windturbines, but also the Pelamis wavepower units. These were designed, trialled and initially produced in Scotland. The latter at Arnish. Not for Scotland - for Portugal. The Scottish Executivehas not shown an ounce of interest in these developments, it appears to be solely interested in slavishly following the line from Westminster. This line is that the future is bright, the future is windturbines. Never mind other renewable energy sources, such as solar energy (for streetlights, come and have a look in Cromor and Ranish), tidal energy (being developed at Shader and already working in Islay) and wavepower. Why can't Scotland be the testing ground for all these other sources of energy? There is only so much the local council can do; this is something the Executive should be supporting. Plenty of reasons why; the most important being supporting the local economy.