Scottish Port Expands with New Site Acquisitions

October 22, 2024, by Adnan Memija

Scotland’s Montrose Port Authority (MPA) has decided to expand its offshore wind infrastructure by acquiring two new sites.

MPA is set to embark on a major expansion with the acquisition of Montrose Commercial Park and the adjacent former Charleton Maternity Home site, increasing the port’s footprint from 59 acres to 104 acres.

The purchase from Equipco Investments encompasses 45 acres of prime real estate, formerly home to Petrofac’s fire safety training facility and the now-demolished Charleton House, which used to function as a maternity hospital.

Existing tenants of Montrose Commercial Park will continue their operations, with all their tenancy agreements being honoured, said MPA.

According to the authority, this strategic, multi-million-pound investment is a key element of MPA’s ongoing masterplanning initiative, aimed at meeting the growing demand for industrial space to support Scotland’s offshore energy sector.

MPA stated that it is exploring future development options for the site with Scottish Enterprise.

“This is an exciting opportunity to further develop port related infrastructure at a strategic site as part of our national Energy Transition mission. We are exploring potential options for investment and promotion with MPA alongside the port masterplanning which together will generate significant additional economic impacts for Scotland”, said Suzanne Sosna, Director of Energy Transition at Scottish Enterprise.

The new initiative will support Montrose’s development as an operations and maintenance (O&M) hub for offshore wind.

Montrose is the O&M for the 1,075 MW Seagreen, Scotland’s largest operational offshore wind farm, and the Inch Cape offshore wind project.

Once Inch Cape is fully operational, Montrose Port is expected to support 2.5 GW of offshore wind.