Weekly update, 8th-22nd April

Energy & Business Services:

It was good to see the announcement this week by Dounreay that its Decommissioning Services Framework had gone live. The overall value of the framework could be up to £400M, and could last from 4-7 years. Six contracts have been awarded, bringing together a total of 28 companies. All companies bidding to be part of the framework were also required to submit a socio-economic plan detailing how their work would help to create a positive legacy for Caithness and north Sutherland. More at https://www.gov.uk/government/news/supply-chain-to-play-key-role-in-decommissioning-projects-at-dounreay

Enabling activities:

I’m delighted to say that Peter Faccenda started work in his new role as CNSRP Manager this week. Peter will be based from the HIE office in Thurso, and has already begun to meet with partners as he gets up to speed with the current and future activities of CNSRP.

Tuesday of next week is the deadline for any food and drink companies to register for the biennial Showcasing Scotland event at Gleneagles in October. Delivered in partnership by Scotland Food & Drink and Scottish Development International, Showcasing Scotland 2019 offers three days of events which will showcase the very best of Scotland’s produce, help to build new trade relationships and secure future business. The previous event in 2017 saw nearly 2,000 one-to-one sessions and business visits for buyers, resulting in over £60m of sales across all key markets. For more details and to register see http://www.showcasingscotland.com/

The last two weeks have seen further Community Planning activities in Caithness. I chaired a further meeting of the Caithness Community Planning Partnership, where for the first time we were able to begin interrogating the data emerging from the work being done on the ground in our four Locality Plan areas (Wick, Thurso, Castletown, Lybster/ Dunbeath/ Berriedale) and looking at where actions might help. The Locality groups for Wick, Thurso and Castletown also met to continue this work. The documents summarising the initial data from the four localities is now held on the Caithness CPP website at http://www.highlandcpp.org.uk/locality-plans-caithness.html

Communications:

As part of an ongoing process of helping communicate progress with the delivery of aspects of our economic transition programme CNSRP’s partners work together to generate news stories for local, regional and national media. I also speak on a regular basis to individuals and organisations across the area to update on progress. This week:

• This week, together with colleagues on the Dounreay Stakeholder Group, I met with Tony Perry, the NDA’s new Head of Programme for Dounreay. It was an excellent opportunity for us to talk about key issues for the local area, and to highlight the importance of up to date data on Dounreay decommissioning (such as a Dounreay people plan). And today a small group of DSG representatives also met with Richard Leonard MSP, leader of Scottish Labour, and again discussed a range of opportunities and issues in the area.