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The Herald Scotland
11-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Can Methil yard create hundreds of jobs from offshore wind boom?
Much has changed over the decades for the fabrication yards, with a lot of the focus in recent times having been on renewables. And it has been difficult to shake the feeling that the renewables boom has not generated as much as might have been expected for Scotland in contracts and jobs. After arranging an interview with two senior executives responsible for the fabrication yard at Methil in Fife, following its change of ownership, it was difficult to know quite what to expect. Spanish group Navantia, which deserves credit for reassuring messages and actions particularly around job security after taking over the Methil site and the fabrication yard at Arnish on the Isle of Lewis in January following the collapse of Harland & Wolff, had not said that much about its future plans. Chatting to the general manager of the Methil yard, Matt Smith, and to Abel Mendez Diaz, commercial director of Navantia Seanergies, what offered much encouragement was the detail of the strategy, the scale of the ambition and the positive tone about what could be achieved. It is important to have all of this as the yard looks to the future. Mr Smith views the Methil site as being on 'probably the most significant up' in his 12 and a half years at the yard. He said: 'I've stayed with this yard through all sorts of troubles and I'm staying with it now because of the fact that I can see the potential for the success of the yard becoming what it used to be and what it should be again.' Mr Smith sees potential to increase the headcount at Methil very significantly indeed. He revealed hopes of at least doubling the workforce from less than 180 to between 350 and 400 within the next two or three years. And he highlighted a possibility the headcount could rise as high as 600, depending on the work that comes into the yard. A workforce of 350 to 400 would represent a very major boost to the local economy and a headcount of 600 would obviously be an even greater fillip. Asked about the importance of the type of employment provided by the Methil yard to the Fife town and the surrounding area, Mr Smith replied: 'It is significant. The workforce we have at the minute is all local. We are increasing using local resource. We are building to a point where we need to look slightly further afield but that is across the central belt of Scotland and down into maybe other key industrial areas of the UK. But within the local economy, when this yard's busy it's very, very good, it's a sort of buoyant time for the community. 'Although I am saying local, we have a number of people who travel from different areas in Scotland and that means that there's money going into accommodation, there's money going into just all the usual things that we would expect people to be spending their expendable income on. It makes a significant difference to the local economy when we're busy.' Read more There has been a great deal of debate, for very good reason, about whether Scotland is winning an appropriate share of the investment and employment being generated by the renewable energy boom. Noting that he and Mr Mendez Diaz used to work as competitors, albeit while looking at opportunities to collaborate, Mr Smith said: 'The reality is Navantia were the market leaders. And therefore for us to be in a situation where we are now part of that - part of a market-leading company that has global ambition - that's game-changing for the yard.' Mr Smith expressed his confidence that the Methil and Arnish yards can play a key part in Scotland reaping the benefits of the enormous amount of offshore wind energy development that is coming. He said: 'I think that within Scotland there are probably two or three key companies, key facilities, that will be used to support ScotWind and the various other programmes. We always speak to each other. We are not looking at how we can beat each other, we are actually looking at how we collaborate, we are looking at how we can put forward a Scotland plc, a UK plc in order to make sure that the UK economy and what is left of the UK fabrication industry actually benefits from this because all of this work is right on our doorstep. 'There is potentially…I would hazard a guess, when you look at the amount of work that is out there, I would say 20 years-plus worth of work that is sitting out there, and I think that will continue to grow. Read more 'I really genuinely see Scotland playing a big part in this. It has to. The reality is it has to.' Mr Smith was upbeat about the outlook for the Arnish yard, as he highlighted the scale of the employment it provides. He said: 'So Arnish is working very, very positively at the minute within the energy industry, and [on] some small components for nuclear work…I think numbers-wise they are up to about I would say approximately 170 at the minute…the large majority of that will be workforce. 'Again, really, really busy time for the yard. They have got a good pipeline well into next year and hopefully beyond. The general manager up there, Albert Allan, is working very, very hard to secure future opportunities.' Mr Smith also flagged the benefits to Arnish of the Stornoway deep water terminal. He said: 'They are getting things like for instance the Stornoway deep water port, and the work that they're doing with Highlands & Islands Enterprise and the port authority is going to bring new opportunity to Arnish. They now have the opportunity to expand the yard a bit and to potentially be doing bigger components for projects. They are also part of our renewables ambition. They have niche rolling equipment. For specialist projects, Arnish is very well equipped.' Again, that combination of detail and positivity. This positive attitude also came across clearly from Mr Mendez Diaz. He said: 'I have always been aware of the capacities of Methil because, as we said, we were competitors in the past. We lost projects against Methil. Beatrice [wind farm] is one of them that comes to my mind. I was very happy to be able to offer the capacities of Methil now under the Navantia portfolio. 'When I visited the place, I was surprised in a way because I didn't know about the capacities regarding substations for example. I only knew about the developments made in the recent years in jacket foundations, but I realised that the yard was capable of much more.' Mr Mendez Diaz did highlight fierce competition from manufacturers in Asia but sees room for optimism, flagging the importance of the UK Government's clean industry bonus (CIB), while emphasising it remains to be seen how this works in practice. He said: 'That promotes the use of local industry so this is to incentivise local content. It is true that the competition is hungry. Every now and then we see a new competitor coming from Asia and we cannot compete in price with that so we are competing with quality, with strength of delivery. To me, the CIB is the mechanism by which we can compete.' He added: 'We need to see how effective it is in reality.' It remains to be seen what the next chapter holds for the Methil and Arnish yards. However, the arrival of Navantia as owner and the plans and positivity about the future suggest there are grounds on this occasion for genuine optimism.
The Herald Scotland
10-07-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Navantia's Methil yard boss reveals renewables jobs hope
Mr Smith, who has been at the Methil yard for 12-and-a-half years under various owners, highlighted 'ups and downs' over this period and described the current trajectory as 'probably the most significant up we have been on with the acquisition by Navantia this year'. He flagged the boost to the local economy when the Methil yard was busy, as well as underlining the scale of the opportunities in the renewables sector and the site's capacity to undertake defence work. Highlighting the scale of planned renewables development and his belief that there is '20 years-plus worth of work that is sitting out there' with potential for this to grow, he declared: 'I really genuinely see Scotland playing a big part in this. It has to. The reality is it has to.' Spanish state-owned group Navantia bought the Methil operation and a fabrication yard at Arnish on the Isle of Lewis in January, following Harland & Wolff's fall into administration. The acquisition also included the Harland & Wolff yards in Belfast and at Appledore in Devon. Navantia has highlighted Methil's 'growing role in the fabrication of offshore wind components - including jackets, monopiles, substations and complex transition pieces'. Asked about the importance of the type of employment provided by the Methil yard to the Fife town and the surrounding area, Mr Smith replied: 'It is significant. The workforce we have at the minute is all local. We are increasing using local resource. We are building to a point where we need to look slightly further afield but that is across the central belt of Scotland and down into maybe other key industrial areas of the UK. But within the local economy, when this yard's busy it's very, very good, it's a sort of buoyant time for the community. 'And we have a number of, although I am saying local, we have a number of people who travel from different areas in Scotland and that means that there's money going into…accommodation, there's money going into just all the usual things that we would expect people to be spending their expandable income on. It makes a significant difference to…the local economy when we're busy.' Mr Smith flagged the work currently in the yard. This includes renewables work from Navantia's Seanergies business as well as preparatory works for the Fleet Solid Support (FSS) vessels defence contract. Navantia UK, set up in 2022, was awarded a Ministry of Defence contract to build three FSS vessels for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in January 2023. Mr Smith said: 'I have been in the yard 12-and-a-half years, so I have been through all the ups and downs and consider this to be probably the most significant up we have been on with the acquisition by Navantia in January of this year…For us to be in a situation where we are now part of…a market-leading company that has global ambition - that's game-changing for the yard.' He added: 'From the yard's perspective, we're now in a situation where we are moving from about 170 [to] 180 people up to in excess of 200. We've got work starting, some of which has come from Seanergies. We're working in partnership with our colleagues in Spain, some of which is…work which is coming as part of the FSS project - it's…preparatory works for the defence works. Read more 'So it's giving us work in the yard - proper work that we haven't had for a good few months unfortunately because of the period of unsettledness. We're increasing staff, we're increasing workforce, we're increasing our apprentice numbers. We've got 46 apprentices on the books at the minute just within this yard. Across the UK group, we've probably in excess of 200 apprentices at the minute. I've got 10 graduating in August. I'm taking on another 14. So that's going to give me 10 new graduates and 50 apprentices still working their way through the programme.' Mr Smith highlighted the potential for the headcount at the Methil yard to increase very significantly, possibly to as much as 600. He said: 'I would like to see us up to the 350 to 400 within the next two or three years and - it depends on the work that comes in - we could be targeting as much as 600. Our yards in Spain operate at times with I think…800 to 1000. So, when we have big projects on, that is the type of numbers that are potentially achievable.' Asked if the workforce, if it rose to 600, would be a mixture of full-time employed workers as a core and contractors who came in, he replied: 'Yes. At the minute, we are 100% core. As we build the company and build the core, you will exhaust the local resource levels so you do have to go slightly further afield and we work with key partners, key companies that will provide labour from elsewhere within the UK or Spain.' Mr Smith added: 'We are, with Navantia's support, going to be looking at setting up [a] training academy within the yard…something that the other yards are all looking to do as well, so that we can operate the apprenticeship programme effectively and obviously then offer upskilling to other people who may be looking for a change in career or looking for the opportunity to progress their careers etcetera.' He described it as a 'very, very exciting time'. Mr Smith said: 'It's great to be sitting here with work in the yard. It feels like the place is being re-energised. We have…improvements going on, investment into the maintenance and then larger investment will come with the strategy and pipeline as that develops.' He noted the Methil yard was working on components for wind turbine generator jacket foundations for the Dieppe Le Tréport offshore wind farm in France. Abel Mendez Diaz, commercial director of Navantia Seanergies, highlighted the fact it had moved work to the UK, given the capacity of the yard. Read more Mr Smith said: 'It is giving us really solid work through to the middle of next year, and we've got quite a strong pipeline beyond that, which is good.' He highlighted the scale of the ScotWind round of offshore wind projects, and other major renewables development across the UK. The ScotWind programme involves developers paying Crown Estate Scotland for use of the seabed, with CES passing profits to the Scottish Government for spending on services across the nation. Mr Smith said: 'Obviously the ScotWind round of projects is potentially enormous - the best part of 30 gigawatts of electricity, probably somewhere in the region of…round about 2,000 foundations required. 'Then there are three other major campaigns of renewable work across the UK, between INTOG, the Irish Sea and the Celtic [Sea] Cluster works.' Asked about the length of service of employees at the Methil and Arnish yards, Mr Smith said: 'In both facilities we have got a lot of people that are long term because they are from the local communities, so we now have in both yards probably people ranging from 17, 18 years old up to - there are one or two people who are still working and still want to work in their early 70s. 'We have an active workforce. I would say that there is probably [an] average age in the yards [of] maybe early to mid forties, maybe mid forties to late forties, just dependent on the numbers.' He declared that the yards 'take on as many female apprentices as we can because, again, we are starting to see more and more women that are interested in working in the industry'. Mr Smith added: 'I have got apprentice welders that are female, we have got apprentice electricians that are female, technical apprentices as well. We are looking at graduate schemes so that will continue to help with that. Historically, it has been a predominantly male-dominated industry but we are starting to see a change. 'We are starting to see many women deservedly in key management positions as well. We are really, really keen just to make sure that we get the best people and I think we are now getting ourselves into a position where we can become an employer of choice and that's very important. We are working with the local schools, working with the local colleges, we are now…within the UK also starting to look into trying to get involved in some of the universities that are doing engineering courses and things so that we start to focus on graduates. I think that is something that is already in place in Spain and there is involvement from universities in research and things like that.'
Sunday World
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sunday World
How Belfast is staying social in the digital age
There are plenty of ways to experience some digital craic Sponsored by Ireland Betting Sites Belfast has always been a city with a strong sense of community. From the banter in the queue at the bakery to the weekly pints with friends in the local pub, there's a natural warmth and wit that defines how the city connects. While the way we socialise might be shifting with the times, that sense of connection hasn't gone anywhere — it's found new outlets. Today, staying social in Belfast often means mixing the traditional with the digital. From online groups to digital quizzes, local podcasts to virtual pub nights, the people of Belfast have found creative ways to stay connected in the modern world. Historical and educational experiences Belfast is home to many digital experiences that make for a fun activity with family and friends. One of the most popular attractions, Titanic Belfast, is a world-class museum built on the former Harland & Wolff shipyard, the site where the infamous ship was built. The museum allows visitors to explore the history of the Titanic through over nine interactive and interpretive digital galleries and exhibits, using sounds, visuals and technology to immerse visitors in the world of the RMS Titanic. For the kids, W5 is a standout destination. This interactive discovery centre at the SSE Arena has over 250 exhibits across eight zones, offering a hands-on learning experience in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It also offers daily science shows designed to educate and entertain. Source: Getty Images Gaming and community activities With a fast-growing community of gaming enthusiasts, Belfast has embraced a new range of gaming spaces. Active Reality Belfast offers free-roam multiplayer virtual reality experiences. From epic space battles to solving mind-bending puzzles, it's designed for team events to casual outings for family and friends. Just a short drive from Belfast, Belong Gaming Arenas in Ballymena also offers high-end setups with the latest gaming tech, from PlayStation 5 to Xbox Series X, in a safe, social space ideal for younger players and families alike. For those less into gaming but still looking for interactive group experiences, The Armoury and Prison Island offer fun challenges that mix puzzles, escape-room elements and digital design to create fun group nights out or team-building events. Online platforms like Meetup also offer a way to stay social, helping locals find others with shared interests, whether it's tech or board games, all organised through the digital platform but experienced in real life. For those who prefer online fun, many also explore betting sites that bring a different kind of excitement through sports and gaming options at home. Some focus on local football leagues or UK horse racing, making them popular with sports fans across Belfast. Entertainment in a digital world For younger people in particular, socialising often happens through screens but that doesn't mean it's any less real. Online gaming, streaming, and content creation have opened up entirely new ways to stay connected. Platforms like Discord, Twitch, and YouTube are filled with Belfast voices, from gamers to musicians to artists and vloggers, all using digital tools to build online communities. While some parents may scratch their heads at it, to a new generation, these platforms are just as socially rich as a night at Lavery's or a pint after five-a-side. Whether chatting while playing Fortnite, reacting to new TikTok's, or sending memes, it's all part of how people connect today. For many popular activities like quiz nights, places have adapted to the times by incorporating technology to enhance these fun experiences. Places such as the Haymarket also host Virtual Quiz Night events, while Digital Pub Safari combines the city streets and local pubs to create a unique team-building activity on the award-winning app (which serves as the guide). Fitness with a virtual spin Health and wellness have become a more trending topic, and many gyms and fitness influencers such as Caroline Girvan and Sean Casey, have created platforms that have cultivated online communities that extend beyond the gym floor. Spaces like Better Gym Belfast offer technically advanced gym equipment, from a free weights area to heart rate monitoring in spin classes, including features like the Mywellness app — where users can track workouts, watch equipment demos and access virtual Les Mills classes from home. Staying connected In a world of screen time and streaming, Belfast's social life has adapted without losing its soul. Whether it's chatting with mates on Discord, bonding over 'girl dinner' recipes on Instagram or trying your luck on betting sites, the essence is the same — staying close and staying connected in the digital age.
Belfast Telegraph
16-05-2025
- Belfast Telegraph
Co Down train carriage makes final journey
The carriage, known as former CIÉ Steam Heating Van No. 3189, arrived in Downpatrick in 2007, where it became a guard's van, generator vehicle and storage facility, before being retired at the end of 2019 Lapland Express Season. Retired during the Covid pandemic, and later damaged by flooding, the carriage was found to require over £100,000 worth of restoration work. The railway museum — the only full-size heritage railway on the island of Ireland — had been closed to the public for almost a year from October 2023 to October 2024 due to extensive flooding in the Downpatrick area. Given its advanced corrosion and limited operational use, the steam heating van was not considered of significant enough rarity or historical importance to warrant major fundraising for restoration. Robert Gardiner, chairman of the DCDR says he 'desperately tried to find a home for it', but efforts to sell the carriage proved unsuccessful. 'There were a few expressions of interest, but nothing firm,' he said. "As much as I'd have loved to restore our only Mk1, it realistically would have been a complete money pit – and we have much more pressing needs at the railway.' Today the van was cut in half and loaded onto lorries for its final trip to County Antrim, with spare parts kept by the DCDR for potential reuse. The Downpatrick & County Down Railway, the only full-size heritage railway on the island of Ireland, operates on part of the former Belfast & County Down Railway route, which closed to passenger traffic in 1950. Previously the Railway had partnered with Belfast Shipbuilders Harland & Wolff to help restore a Victorian railway carriage.
Belfast Telegraph
02-05-2025
- Business
- Belfast Telegraph
Glentoran call Extraordinary General Meeting as owner Ali Shams Pour looks to strengthen grip on club
The Belfast Telegraph can reveal that shareholders have been informed the EGM will take place at the Harland & Wolff staff club in east Belfast later this month, with 75 per cent of shareholder approval required for the East (No.1) Limited company, of which Pour is a director, to add a further ten per cent to the shares they already have in the club.
