A major fish farm company has announced plans for an £80million feed plant on Skye that will create 55 jobs.
Just a few weeks ago, Marine Harvest axed 80 jobs across the Highlands.
As well as creating jobs, the new plant at Kyleakin will provide extra work for construction firms, suppliers and contractors.
The proposed site is at Kyleakin Quarry which has access to a pier and a good road network.
Marine Harvest will now embark on a formal planning process and will hold public exhibitions on the proposals at Kyleakin on April 18 and at Kyle on April 19.
Steve Bracken, the company’s business support manager, said: “The proposed new feed plant will employ 55 staff with wide ranging skills and backgrounds in engineering, process planning, logistics, quality control, feed formulation, finance and purchasing.
“Based on our recent experience in Norway, where we built a feed plant in 2013, we will have a requirement for additional local skills and services that we don’t have in-house. So there will be a knock on effect for local businesses.
“We were sorry to lose colleagues from the recent redundancies within Marine Harvest but this was part of a company restructuring to make us more sustainable for the long term. However in addition to the new feed plant jobs, we will creating up to 14 new jobs at our Inchmore Hatchery in Glenmoriston and another 10 jobs at our wrasse hatchery in Argyll.”
Ian Blackford, MP for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, said: “This is a significant private sector investment on Skye and it means the company will be employing as many as 120 staff in Skye and Lochalsh.
“It is of course important that local communities can participate in this process and whilst there are procedures in place to allow community engagement I look forward to the planning process through Highland Council being expedited in a timely manner.
“This development is good news for the area, it is a welcome boost to see the creation of so many year round full time jobs. We need sustainable growth throughout the Highlands and nowhere more so than in the West Highlands.”
Highlands and Islands MSP Rhoda Grant said: “When I spoke to Marine Harvest about the job losses they had talked about having a feed plant somewhere and I was pressuring them to make sure it was in the Highlands and Islands because that is the area that needs the jobs.”