Roddy Balfour says Port of Ardersier "all ready to go except for two licences"

Highland Councillor Roddy Balfour was at the Cawdor Community Council meeting last night and he seemed to be very hopeful that the Port of Ardersier would soon be providing employment. He told the meeting:

"It's all ready to go except for two licences, one because someone found an unusual form of marine life which has had to go to Oban to the centre for marine biology and be examined to see what they are going to do about it. So that has held that up a bit and the operating licence has yet to come from the Department of Trade and Industry but other than that it's on the way to go. There will be 400 jobs probably in the next few months with the  first stage of the sea walls and all that kind of thing, piers and jetties and rising to 1400 approximately within the next year which will include apprenticeships as well hopefully. They won't be the usual welding or building apprenticeships. There will be a lot of electronic apprenticeships and this kind of thing which is very valuable these days. So that's where it stands at the moment. "