£40M New Distillery Plans To Use Old Rail Link

 

A New £40million distillery proposed for Moray could prove to be an environmental showcase, it was revealed recently. Drinks giant Diageo is hoping to develop rail-freight operations to serve its new distillery, if its preferred site of Roseisle, between Elgin and Kinloss, is chosen. This would increase environmental efficiency by reducing the number of vehicles having to travel by road and cutting the number of pollutants being released into the atmosphere.

A disused railway track runs from Alves to Diageo's existing facility at Roseisle, the Maltings. It connects to the main Aberdeen-Inverness line, but has been out of use for about 12 years. A Diageo spokesman said the drinks company had no firm plans for the rail line because it was currently out of operation, but it had a desire to use it and wanted to enter into discussions with owner Network Rail. The company envisages using the rail route in the short term to transport raw materials, such as barley, to the malting plant and, in the long term, to move spirits to the central belt for warehousing.

The spokesman said: "At one level, the rail track is there, and we would hope it is an opportunity that we can explore. We have aspirations to use the line long term. Everyone wants to see stuff being taken off the roads. Immediately, we would use it to bring raw materials in and ship the maltings back out to our distilleries. Longer term, spirits could be shipped out for warehousing in the central belt."

He said Diageo was in the early stages of planning, and had a lot of design and development work to complete on the distillery. The spokesman added that development of freight operations would also depend heavily on how easily the line could be brought back into use and how well it connected to the rail network across the north and north-east.

A spokesman for Network Rail said: "We are aware of Diageo's proposal, and understand that it is still at an early stage. Network Rail currently supports Diageo's existing distribution requirements, and will continue to work with them to help meet their future business needs."

The distiller has earmarked Roseisle as a preferred site because of its link to local services, availability of raw materials, good infrastructure and ease of access to local expertise in the malt whisky industry. The new distillery will form part of Diageo's wider plans to invest £100million and create 200 jobs at its Scottish sites. The company said it was starting discussions with Moray Council and other relevant agencies about its plans for the new distillery.

The proposed plant will employ 25 people, and is expected to open early in 2009, with the first mature spirit being available from 2012. It will be the first new distillery in Scotland for many years and will help add to Moray's already established worldwide reputation for producing quality malts. There are 90 malt whisky distilleries in Scotland, 48 of them in the Moray area.

Scotland exports whisky worth £2.4billion a year, and the industry directly supports 10,000 jobs and a further 30,000 indirectly in supplies, bottling, transportation and printing.

Moray councillor Bob Wilson said: "As far as the principle of using rail is concerned, I think it would be a brilliant idea, and it is certainly better for the environment. Back in the 60s, most of the distilleries on Speyside had their own railway connections." A £4million improvement project to allow larger rail-freight containers to travel from Mossend in Lanarkshire to Elgin is currently under way.

A spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association added that the industry was already one of the most sustainable, economically, socially and environmentally, and that it was leading the way in energy-saving business practices.