Highland haulage firm seeks to vacate Carsegate Industrial Estate for new HQ on the outskirts of Inverness
A family-owned Highland haulage firm is seeking permission to build a new base on the outskirts of Inverness.
MacRitchie Highland Distribution wants to relocate from the Carsegate Industrial Estate to a greenfield site just south-west of the Milton of Leys A9 interchange.
The detailed application, to be considered under planning officials’ delegated powers, is for an office and distribution depot building with associated parking, yard space and a wash bay.
The firm, established almost 30 years ago, has a track record as one of Scotland’s leading independent providers of road haulage and distribution services.
Lifescan Scotland Ltd, a world leader in blood glucose monitoring based at Beechwood Business Park in Inverness, is a major client.
Historically, MacRitchie has shared premises with another local firm, Wood’s Express Parcels, but in documents submitted to planners growth of the neighbouring business is cited as a reason for wishing to move.
A design and access statement states: “We have kept the European distribution work (for Lifescan locally) and for west coast areas.
“Another local company, Wood's Express Parcels, have taken over all of our other distribution work.
“Due to the expansion in the latter company's business, the current premises shared with them have become too small. We are now keen to move to our own premises where we can operate from a bespoke designed facility on a much smaller scale.
“The upper Milton of Leys site is ideally located to allow ease of connection to the A9 trunk road for journey's north and south.
“It also allows convenient access to Lifescan's location a couple of miles north and also located very close to the A9.”
MacRitchie operates six articulated lorries, a 26-tonne lorry, an 18-tonne lorry and two vans, according to the documents.
Three of the lorries leave Inverness each Monday morning to head for the Hull to Rotterdam Ferry, delivering Lifescan products to Belgium, before uplifting raw materials from France and returning to Inverness on a Friday night or Saturday morning.
The remaining lorries are mainly used for transporting the raw Lifescan product between Muir of Ord and the Beechwood production facility.
The company has operated that route for Lifescan for 25 years.
The 26-tonne and 18-tonne lorries are loaded for pallet deliveries to west coast locations from Durness in the far north-west to Kyle of Lochalsh and Skye.
The firm envisages two to three employees would work in the proposed office and depot building during normal business operating hours of 8am to 6pm on weekdays.
The broader site is allocated for business use in the Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan and, just over a year ago, site owners Hazledene (Inverness) Ltd were given planning approval in principle to develop up to 3,000sqm of business, commercial and community uses.
Colin Armstrong Architects was enlisted by MacRitchie to draw up detailed designs for the new premises featuring around 900 square metres of office and depot space over two floors.
There would be 25 parking spaces including 10 trailer spaces, plus a wash bay, cycle parking and bin storage.
Extensive existing young and semi-mature trees to the west would be mostly unaffected by the proposals, with the exception of “one or two” trees.
The site is said to have “good solar orientation” with the applicants keen to promote low energy use in the building design
The proposed layout would be designed to prioritise easy vehicle access for both cars and lorries, while a footpath is proposed to connect to the site and the pedestrian footpath on the Milton of Leys road.
The application has a decision deadline of July 30.
