£100m Islands Growth Deal is signed to transform economy
Andrew Hirst
History was made this morning (Friday) with the signing of the Islands Growth Deal.
The SIC’s leader Emma Macdonald signed the deal with UK and Scottish government ministers and the leaders of Orkney and Western Isles council.
Mrs Macdonald said it was a “real privilege” to sign the deal, which will see the governments invest £100m in 16 projects.
Highlands and Islands chief executive Stuart Black has welcomed the announcement.
“This will provide a boost to projects that have the potential to benefit communities across the dispersed population and geography of the islands,” he said.
“It will also provide innovation and employment and help deliver sustainable and inclusive economic recovery in some of our most fragile areas.
“We look forward to working closely with our partners in the Islands growth Deal to deliver these important benefits over the next ten years.”
Shetland projects to benefit are: Knab redevelopment (£9.1m); Shetland Clean Energy Project
(Left to right) Councillor Paul Steele, Leader of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar; Malcolm Offord, UK Government Minister for Scotland; Ivan McKee MSP, Scottish Government Business Minister; Councillor, Emma Macdonald, Leader of Shetland Islands Council; and Councillor James Stockan, Leader of Orkney Islands Council.
Alistair Inkster
So £33.33 million over 5 years is going to transform our economy.
Yet you consistently fail to report that £1billion+ of fish is taken from our waters by foreign vessels each year and landed else where.
Or to rub salt into the wound, at our own piers into trucks bound for Europe with no economic benefit to these isles whatsoever.
Imagine the transformation to wir economy if that fish was being landed in wir markets by local boats.
Imagine if even a small percentage was being processed here before export.
Now that really would transform wir economy.
The same goes for the western isles and Orkney.
If only we had control instead of letting the idiots in holyrood and Westminster rule our lives.
Mr ian Tinkler
This jam here is spread pretty thin! Note the “Shetland Clean Energy Project”! What a contradiction in terms. Would that be importing other people’s rubbish for burning or deforesting huge areas of natural temperate woodland to make woodchips?
Neither option is low-carbon, green, intelligent, renewable or remotely environmentally friendly, or sustainable. I particularly hate the destruction of natural woodland for wood chip burning. It is actually very similar, no identical to burning the Amazon Forest. No one but an ignorant fool would call that renewable energy. Natural woodland takes hundreds of years in growing and is literally destroyed by burning in minutes. It will take 50 to 100 years of renewed growth to recapture the carbon released by the original burn. The original species diversity and woodland ecosystems may never recover. The utter stupidity of the green idiots is there for all to see.