MAJOR Ayrshire Growth Deal projects have missed key early milestones, a report has revealed.
The £251million deal will see investment from the UK and Scottish Government and the three Ayrshire authorities. In total the AGD aims to create up to 7,000 new jobs across the three Ayrshire council areas by 2030, while attracting £300million in private investment by 2045.
It is believed main elements of the North Ayrshire projects are still on track. They include the International Marine Science and Environmental Centre in Ardrossan and the Hunterston Strategic Development Area.
But the four main South Ayrshire projects - centred around Prestwick Airport - missed their targets.
They include the Prestwick Spaceport project, and the Prestwick Aerospace and space technology application centre.
It is believed that East Ayrshire’s Community Renewable Energy Project (CoRE) in Cumnock also missed key targets.
Details were revealed at a meeting of the Ayrshire Economic Joint Committee, it was reported that there have been some early difficulties in making key deadlines.
In most cases this has seen targets for getting an outline business case approved by government come and go.
With so many major projects coming under the Ayrshire Growth Deal banner, it has always been seen as likely that deadlines would be in need of fine tuning.
A report to the Ayrshire Economic Joint Committee, states: “The key changes to the Implementation Plan have provided an opportunity to reset the management of projects.
“This includes adjustments to project timelines where early stages have not been met.
“This reflects recent delays for some projects in progressing to the OBC (outline business case) stage. Elsewhere adjustments have been made to reflect the complexity of projects and phasing of the business case development and project delivery.”
The report continued: “It has been sought to ensure that the changes made will not comprise the expected long term delivery of projects.”
The implementation plan was agreed by Governments and the councils.
The South Ayrshire report revealed outline business cases, which were targeted for approval by the Government last October, had not been completed for the Spaceport, Aerospace, surrounding road improvements and a commercial build project around the airport site.
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