Forum pushes for early improvements to Berriedale Published on 21^st December 2012

The Caithness Chamber of Commerce, under the auspices of the Caithness Transport Forum, has written to John Swinney to emphasise the importance of re-aligning the Berriedale Braes to support business moving forward for the emerging renewables industry.

The Chamber stepped in to take over the running of the Caithness Transport Forum from Caithness Partnership as the forum was seen to be a pro-active forum for both business and the community to ensure the connectivity of Caithness continued to be raised as a priority within the region.

At the first Caithness Transport Forum held on Friday 14th December, under the chairmanship of Trudy Morris, Caithness Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive the group heard that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority had now provided funding to allow Transport Scotland to undertake the feasibility study for the re-alignment of the Berriedale Braes.

Speaking after the meeting, Trudy Morris said “The Caithness Partnership has done a tremendous job of keeping Caithness transport connectivity high on the agenda of Scottish Government and while we did not wish to see the Partnership dissolve it seemed appropriate that the Chamber take over the running of the forum and continue to build on the good work already done.

“Given the recent Scottish Government announcement that there is funding available for ‘shovel ready’ projects we have written to Mr Swinney to request that the Berriedale Braes be included as one of these projects and we will be encouraging Transport Scotland to commence the study to ensure that it is shovel ready at the right time to guarantee funding coming forward to start work in earnest to improve the Berriedale Braes”.

The Chamber secured funding from Dounreay Site Restoration Ltd and The Highland Council to continue to run the Caithness Transport Forum.

Trudy added “I would like to pay tribute to John Green and Koreen MacDougall who were instrumental in ensuring that the Transport Forum was a pro-active organisation and I am looking forward to working with the group to help improve our transport links so we are in a good position to benefit local business and the community when we are actively trying to diversify away from nuclear decommissioning into new emerging industries.”