Scottish Freeports for Cromarty and Firth of Forth

The winning bids came from the Cromarty Firth Freeport consortium led by Opportunity Cromarty Firth and the Firth of Forth consortium led by Forth Ports. This will lead to significant investment and jobs in both these new Freeport areas and also represents a major boost for the offshore wind manufacturing sector given the prominence of the ports involved in the bids to this sector and their ongoing role in the current and future Scottish offshore wind projects including those in the ScotWind and INTOG leasing rounds.

The Cromarty Firth bid was led by the Opportunity Cromarty Firth consortium and the new Freeport area includes a number of port sites, namely the Port of Cromarty Firth, Port of Inverness, Port of Nigg and also includes Inverness Airport. These three ports, along with Ardersier Port, also makes up the Scottish Floating Offshore Wind Port Cluster and this Freeport win cements the Cromarty and Moray Firth area as the preeminent site for floating wind manufacture and assembly in the UK.       

The successful Firth of Forth Freeport bid was led by Forth Ports and involved six of their port sites - Dundee, Rosyth, Grangemouth, Methil, Burntisland and Leith. A number of the Firth of Forth ports involved in their successful bid also have a track record in offshore wind with the Port of Dundee already delivering marshalling services for projects in the Firth of Forth and with Leith announcing new investment to enable offshore wind related manufacture and assembly at the port.

This new Freeport status in both the Scottish zones will enable further investment from the offshore wind sector and create significant opportunity for the Scottish supply chain, both within the boundary of the Freeports and more widely across the whole of Scotland.