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Space rocket builders welcome investment in industry in Highlands and Islands





Scottish rocket-builders Orbex announcing plans for their launches.
Scottish rocket-builders Orbex announcing plans for their launches.

Scottish rocket-builders Orbex has welcomed what it describes as a reversal in stance by Wildland and Anders Povlsen on spaceports in Scotland.

A £1.4m investment by Aviemore-based Wildland Limited, owned by the environmentalist billionaire, was announced in developing a launch pad on Unst operated by the The Shetland Space Centre on Friday.

Orbex has hailed it as a significant reversal of position and an acknowledgement that spaceports and wildland environments can happily co-exist.

An Orbex spokesperson said: "This investment by Wildland and renowned environmentalist Anders Povlsen is a massive vote of confidence in Sutherland spaceport.

"We're absolutely delighted that Wildland and Mr Povlsen have completely reversed their position, and now fully agree that small, sustainable spaceports like Sutherland can peacefully co-exist with wildland environments, avian sanctuaries and marine mammals.

"We look forward to a much larger investment in the spaceport at Sutherland, which has many fewer environmental constraints, in due course."

One of the Orbex rockets on display.
One of the Orbex rockets on display.

Orbex said the Sutherland spaceport is the only UK spaceport to win planning permission to date, after an extensive environment study lasting almost three years and close scrutiny from agencies such as Scottish Government, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency.

Construction of the small, sustainable spaceport at Sutherland is expected to start in 2021.

Orbex, which operates factories and test sites in Scotland, has secured contracts for six launches of commercial satellites from Sutherland.

Highland councillors gave the go ahead for a £17.3 million spaceport to be sited at the Mhoine, in north Sutherland, in the summer.

But the Danish tycoon has an estate next to the area where the launch site is earmarked and in the Autumn lodged a petition for judicial review of the decision by Highland Council to grant planning permission.

Wildland wanted ministers to intervene in the Sutherland Space Hub scheme – and to also consider it alongside Scotland's two other planned rocket sites in Shetland and the Outer Hebrides.

Tim Kirkwood, the company's chief executive, said at the time: “It is absolutely vital that planning applications of such scale and significance for environmentally vulnerable protected areas like the A’Mhoine Peninsula are subject to rigorous scrutiny at the planning application stage, whoever the applicant happens to be.

“We have carefully considered Highland Council’s decision to approve a space port at the site and believe we were fully justified in our initial concerns over the granting of an application with a virtually unprecedented number of conditions.

"Our view is that this resulted because the planning authority did not have access to sufficiently detailed or rigorous impact assessments on key aspects of the proposal to approve the application in the way it did.

“We therefore felt we had no option but to lodge an appeal for judicial review of what we believe to be a flawed decision.”

A successful review could lead to a long drawn out public inquiry.


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