The new Total plant will be outside the existing Sullom Voe Terminal boundary, hence the need for the new access roads. Click on image to enlarge.
Rock for the new approach roads for Total’s new plant at Sullom Voe is being shipped in from Norway at vast expense because a planning condition is restricting the efforts of a local firm to supply the material, The Shetland Times can reveal.
Staff at a North Mainland quarry have been threatened with reduced working hours after its owner, construction firm Garriock Brothers, was denied the chance to deliver the goods to Irish contractor Roadbridge for the £500m development.
Instead 60,000 tonnes of rock is being shipped across the North Sea at double the anticipated cost, which was put at £500,000 by Garriock’s managing director George Garriock.
Speaking to The Shetland Times, he said the move followed a planning restriction which said materials should only be imported via sea before being landed close to the site.
However he had learned about it too late and, in the meantime, had set aside £1m of heavy crushing machinery to be used in the development.
Planning guidelines for the plant state: “All materials … shall be imported into the site via the sea, landed close to the site and thereafter transported to the site via road transport.
Mr Garriock said the crushing equipment was instead being sent to one of the company’s quarries in Inverness, because there was not enough work in Shetland for it to do.
He said plans to install a new £200,000 washing plant at the company’s quarry at Brindister – intended to make washed sand which could possibly be used for pipe-bedding – were under review.
However he said plans were well underway to re-open a quarry at Vatster, which should create work and avert any lay-offs.
“We, as a company, take full responsibility for our misjudgement in purchasing the equipment to carry out the work, but you have to speculate to try and progress. It takes four to six months to get delivery of this type of specialised equipment.
Council officials say they recognised the impact the planning condition could have on local industry but insisted a path could be found for Garriock to supply materials for the construction project.
Planning officer John Holden said the application as originally submitted did not have sufficient information on traffic movements during the construction stage.
That, said Mr Holden, was raised with Total. However the oil and gas giant was eager to proceed to determine the application.
However councillors felt that could jeopardise local industry, and conditions were later revised to allow rock to be brought to the site by road once an environmental impact assessment had been properly carried out.
The whole process could take over two months to complete, meaning it could be at least July before Garriock Brothers is able to supply the rock.
“We felt the only way to control the impact of the development was to impose a condition for materials to be brought by sea,” he said.
“When the planning board considered the application it identified that this would potentially put local industry at a disadvantage, and it suggested conditions be revised to allow flexibility.
“We understand Total are intent on submitting an application to enable them to import materials, including aggregate, by means other than through the jetty.
Spokesman for Total Brian O’Neil said the company had recognised sailing rock from Norway should be an “interim measure”.
Someone once said something was “as easy to find as an idiot in local government”.
When Mr Garriock tendered to supply the rock, the council should have been falling over themselves to help him. He pays their wages.
Instead of this, a mealy mouthed compromise that will cost him a fortune has been reached. To make this vital, useful, and valued company wait till some pillock does an “environmental impact assessment” is beyond ridiculous.
I’d have those responsible in the quarry, with a hammer, breaking stones.
I wonder what the carbon footprint is of producing then importing across the noth sea bulk CRA from norway when CRA is one thing that Shetland is not short of!
Another example of petty officialdom destroying local industry.