Weekly Update, 15th November 2010

• The Partnership’s Advisory Board met this week at T3UK. There were two update presentations on key current activities. The first was from Sandy Mackie of Scrabster Harbour Trust on progress with the Trust’s redevelopment plans for Scrabster harbour. This was welcomed by everyone, and there was real hope that the funding package would be finalised in time for Scrabster’s facilities to play a key role in the early deployments in the Pentland Firth. The second presentation was from Trudy Morris of Caithness Chamber of Commerce, who outlined the new “Invest Caithness” project that has been developed with support from HIE and the NDA.
• I also presented a draft Action Plan for 2011-2014 to the Advisory Board. This Plan, which is focused on delivery of employment opportunities in energy and business services, was broadly agreed, and will now go to the Partnership’s Executive Board in two weeks time.
• The Partnership’s Delivery Group also met this week, and focused on the detail of how we monitor and report on delivery of our Action Plan commitments
• I also chaired sessions with each of the bid teams for the Dounreay PBO competition. Representatives from the Dounreay Stakeholder Group and the Regeneration Partnership met the two teams in turn, and discussed a range of issues that we feel are key to delivering the economic transition we seek for our area. Although the bidders have only just started the dialogue period of the competition it was a good opportunity to update them on our work, and for the bidders to reaffirm the importance they attach to addressing the socio-economic impacts of decommissioning.
• Scottish Renewables in association with HIE will stage a Marine Energy Conference & Exhibition in Inverness this coming week. Caithness and North Sutherland will be well represented at both Conference and Exhibition days.
• Also being held this coming week in London is the 4th International Tidal Energy Summit in London. The Conference is run by Tidal Today, who want to present an open letter and petition to the UK Government on further support for the tidal industry. You can read the letter at  http://www.tidaltoday.com/tidal-conference/petition.shtml