THE economic skyscape seems forever gloomy, so when two shafts of sunlight break through, we are sure to appreciate them. First, it was like a blast from the past to see a political leader in a hard hat taking a tour of a newly opened industrial plant. Indeed, this was actually a reopened plant that was meant to have been Scotland’s last major steelworks.
Motherwell’sDalzell plate mill was mothballed by Tata Steel last year, along with the Clydebridge plant in Cambuslang, at a cost of 225 jobs. However, it has been reborn, thanks to a team effort between the Liberty House steel company and the Scottish Government.
Following the Tata plant’s closure, Nicola Sturgeon’s administration set up a task force to secure a new future for the facility. The reward for such decisive action was the First Minister having a tour of the reopened plant yesterday.
More importantly, Liberty has hired 120 staff, including many former employees, and this could soon increase to 200. There is also hope of the Clydebridge plant reopening, possibly to manufacture towers for wind turbines. Dalzell itself will bring in £15 million a year to the local economy, according to Liberty’s estimates.
Meanwhile, in another town with a proud industrial past, a brighter future could be on the horizon with the proposed gifting of a former whisky bottling plant to a regeneration project with potential to create 1,000 jobs. Diageo, which closed its Johnnie Walker factory in Kilmarnock four years ago, has offered to donate the 23-acre site plus £2m to an ambitious project for homes, offices, leisure facilities and a conference centre. After the much criticised closure, this attempt to leave a “positive legacy” is most welcome.
It may not be the case that every cloud has a silver lining. But perhaps we may say that at least two over the often grey Scottish skyscape have parted to let in some sunlight.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here