Hitting the accelerator: Progress hailed regarding planned alloy wheels factory

Plans to make Fort William a future hub of Britain’s automotive industry have taken a step forward with ground engineers moving onto the site earmarked for Liberty’s flagship alloy wheels factory.

Construction is currently expected to begin in early 2020 and continue until late 2021. Picture: Iain Ferguson/The Write Image.

The aim is for the £120 million plant to manufacture wheels for at least a fifth of all UK-made cars from 2022 onwards and create about 400 skilled jobs. Overseeing the ground investigation operation this week was Douglas Dawson, chief executive of Liberty Industries Group, part of Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance, which bought the site for £330m from Rio Tinto in 2016.

Dawson said: “Vehicle manufacturing works on long-term design and production cycles, with new models expected to come on stream in 2022/23.

“Our aim is to ensure this new wheels factory is up and running in time to feed fully into the supply chain for that next cycle. However, as everyone knows, the UK automotive industry is in a state of uncertainty at the moment and our plans are linked predominantly to demand from the auto sector, so we need to keep a close eye on the situation and continue our dialogue with the car makers. We’ll be having further important discussions with them in the near future.”

Dawson added that following ground investigation at the site, detailed designs would be drawn up for local authority approval, and construction is currently expected to begin in early 2020 and continue until late 2021.