Scotland's ports and harbours are crucial for our future
Scottish Enterprise is committed to investing in these crucial gateways to the world, writes Victoria Carmichael
The importance of connections between countries has become even more obvious in recent months with lots of talk about tariffs and trade agreements.
Scotland’s ports and harbours are, in the most tangible sense, our gateway to the rest of the world, and their gateway to everything that Scotland has to offer.
Not only in what we produce within our shores, but also in how our location and natural resources provide assets that can benefit the whole world.
Scotland’s location as the windbreak of Europe has handed us a perfectly-placed opportunity to be a world-leader in low carbon energy. That’s why Scottish Enterprise has a mission focused on accelerating the energy transition, to ensure our business community is equipped to take full advantage.
Scotland's coast is home to more than 200 ports and harbours, which have a range of public and private operators.
A report from 2023 found that our ports contribute an estimated £1.5 bn GVA to the local economy. They are essential hubs in Scottish supply chains, with exports accounting for 48 per cent of the total freight moved through major Scottish ports in 2021.
They keep Scotland connected, with a total of 6.3 million passengers and 2.6 million vehicles carried on Scottish ferry routes in 2021.
And ports directly employed 18,600 people in Scotland in 2019 and supported a total of 49,202 jobs across Scotland.
These ports and harbours are crucial to our future as a trading nation, a green energy powerhouse and as hubs for increased innovation and productivity.
Scottish Enterprise is currently committed to £7.5 million in support of an overall spend of £15m on design and consent studies to develop ports and associated infrastructure to unlock further, critical investment.
Approved projects include Hunterston, Montrose, Peterhead Bay, and TS FLOW – representing potential investment of around £860m.
We have recently supported Port of Montrose to acquire new land in the town to enable more port-related industry to take advantage of Montrose’s hub potential for Offshore Wind (OW) and build on its role as Europe’s leading chain and anchor port.
Ports in Scotland are already investing to capture these new opportunities. Forth Ports has invested over £100m in new quayside and land at both Dundee and Leith (between them 100hectares of renewed space) for OW opportunities and is considering more investment at Burntisland to capitalise on the role that the Firths of Forth and Tay are playing for the OW sector.
Like Forth Ports on the east, in the west of Scotland Peel Ports have made significant investment in craneage at Port of Greenock, redeveloped their Glasgow port at King George V dock to create more space for port users and recently obtained consents to enable investment at Hunterston to provide 35 hectares of space with quayside for OW being developed on the west coast and off Ireland.
Fraserburgh is already supporting the energy transition through the Moray East operations and maintenance base for the offshore wind sector.
And Ayr and Troon play a vital role for onshore wind, as well as our timber industry.
Further examples of recent major investment including Aberdeen South Harbour (£420m) completed in 2023 and the work happening on the future of Grangemouth will be truly transformational for Scotland’s economy.
It’s crucial that these assets are future-proofed.
Working with international engineering consultancy Royal HaskoningDHV, Scottish Enterprise convened a working group comprising many of the owners and operators of Scotland’s ports and harbours to assess and benchmark their digital maturity.
The results of that exercise, published in our ‘The Digital Voyage for Ports in Scotland’ report, are being used to identify capital investment projects in advanced technologies that will make the country’s ports and harbours among the most digitally competitive in the world, helping them increase productivity and build resilience.
This kind of continued assessment, innovation and investment is vital to ensuring our ports and harbours continue to provide the future gateways from Scotland to the world, and from the world to Scotland. We Back Ambition.
Victoria Carmichael, Director Property, Growth Infrastructure & Major Projects, Scottish Enterprise
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