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Plans for Fort William car wheel plant ‘still progressing’

The Liberty Smelter plant in Fort William.
The Liberty Smelter plant in Fort William.

Plans for an alloy wheel manufacturing facility at Fort William are “still progressing”, the operators have confirmed.

The facility, which involves an investment in excess of £130 million creating hundreds of jobs was unveiled last September.

Highland councillor Andrew Baxter and his colleagues lambasted the aluminium company for its lack of progress at an area meeting last week.

However, Liberty Aluminium Lochaber Ltd has insisted there were “no delays” and confirmed order books were open at the north plant.

It said workers had already moved into temporary offices on the development site.

Liberty said it was looking to have 400 semi-skilled employees based in the smelter and confirmed that plant managers were already in discussions with UK car manufacturers for orders of aluminium wheels.

But the spokesman was unable to give a definite date for production officially starting on the site.


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A spokesman for Liberty UK said: “Once again there are no delays to the project, what we are doing, is exploring the opportunity to future proof the operation to allow the possibly to expand its capacity.

“The bulk of the work to get us ready for factory construction is still progressing but the decision on the final size of the operation that will be built is still under consideration.

“Discussions are ongoing with motor manufacturers to determine exactly when wheels from Lochaber will be needed and this will also help inform the schedule for the operation.”

He continued: “Projects like this take time, but there has been progress.

“Our consultants, including environmental experts, are helping us to meet the range of conditions associated with its planning permission for the project and have been compiling specialist reports on issues such as transport, drainage, soil quality, archaeology, construction methods and environmental mitigation which are all required by the planning consent.

“We’ll be issuing updates to the local community and councils to keep them informed of progress in due course.”

Councillor Baxter said: “I am delighted to hear the company confirm that progress is imminent.

“However, many in Lochaber are surprised that we haven’t seen action before now.

“After all, securing planning permission quickly seemed so important at the beginning of the year. I remember being encouraged not to call a planning site visit, because it would slow things down and the company wanted to be on site in the first week of February.

“Maybe I am overly sceptical but the company’s rhetoric up to now hasn’t matched the reality.”