Buckie shipyard jobs boost
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A MORAY shipyard is predicting a jobs boost – despite losing lifeboat work it has enjoyed for the last 60 years.
Buckie Shipyard will no longer receive scheduled refit work from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).
However, despite that, the director of the yard expects the workforce to rise in the coming months as it continues to secure work in the renewables sector.
Colin Taylor, director, confirmed that the RNLI has cancelled future refit work at the yard. "After a close working relationship stretching back over 60 years, Buckie Shipyard are naturally disappointed with the RNLI’s recent decision to cancel future scheduled refit work at Buckie," he said.
"This decision of the RNLI is as a consequence of its wider strategic review and a change in its maintenance policy, and we understand that the RNLI have similarly withdrawn refits from several other long-established suppliers elsewhere in the UK."
Mr Taylor said Buckie Shipyard looks forward to continuing to support the RNLI fleet of lifeboats with repairs and unscheduled maintenance as before. The Thurso and Buckie lifeboats have recently been into Buckie for such work.
The team at Buckie Shipyard are currently building two 16metre catamarans destined for the offshore wind energy industry, following on from three similar vessels successfully delivered earlier this year.
"Given the current workload at the yard," added Mr Taylor "the company management do not anticipate any downturn in employment numbers from current levels and are hopeful that increases in employment levels will be required later in the year to meet the anticipated workload in new vessel fabrication."
The yard employs 64 people and Mr Taylor expects that to rise to over 80 as it expands further into the construction of more aluminium vessels and diversify into more elements of the renewables industry.
