Interesting Political News16 Feb 2023 06:16
There has been two bits of political news that might impact HARL going forward. The first is this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-64656166. With Nicola Sturgeon no longer the First Minister it raises the possibility that the SNP might not be preoccupied about the question of independence and look at other issues. One of relevance to HARL is enforcing the local content rules in relation to offshore wind projects. If this was to be done HARL (Arnish) and HARL (Methil) might be able to get a reasonable share of the fabrication work for the various offshore wind projects around the Celtic Sea. JW has talked about this but we have yet to see anything positive.
The other bit of news is that we may see a deal on the NI Protocol next week. If this happens then the Northern Ireland Executive can be restored. The restoration of the NI Executive does directly impact HARL in two ways. Firstly, the Ballyumford Hydrogen storage project - As LSE03 has posted on before there are decisions relating to this awaiting approval but there has been no Executive to give the approval. Secondly, Any decisions that require Ministerial approval around can move forward. Looking at the timeline it may be that the absence of a functioning executive has caused part of the delay in relation to the judicial review as there was no Minister to approve anything.