A Fife whisky distillery’s ambitious plans for growth have been hampered by unnecessary red tape, it has emerged.
The Inchdairnie Distillery outside Glenrothes, which started production in Whitecraigs Road in 2015, is working towards releasing a single malt in 2029 and aims to produce around 100,000 cases a year of premium spirit.
However, it has been forced to call on the Scottish Government to intervene in a wrangle with authorities over Fife Council’s failure to give a timely decision on hazardous substance consent for the storage and processing of alcohol.
Without it, the distillery cannot process its mature whisky and has also had to hold off on employing two new workers, which would take the staff contingent at the site to 16.
Managing director Ian Palmer, who has more than 40 years of experience in the whisky industry, said the delays had been hugely frustrating.
“We need to have a hazardous substance consent to hold all of the whisky we have at the distillery and we have had one in place since before we started production in 2015.
“In order to dispatch our mature whisky we needed to install some additional tanks and this required a new hazardous substance consent.
“We applied for planning permission for the tank farm in March 2019 and on the same day we applied for a new hazardous substance consent.
“We were granted planning permission in early June of 2019 and we submitted a second application for hazardous substance consent in October of 2019 but we still do not have this consent.
“Without this consent we cannot process our mature whisky.”
Mr Palmer said Fife Council has to consult a number of statutory organisations as part of the process.
However, one of those, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has confirmed it did not have enough resources to respond with its views on the consent application within the timetable set out in regulations.
“A hazardous substance consent must be determined within two months of the application being validated,” Mr Palmer continued.
“In our case, our consent application should have been determined three months ago.”
The situation has prompted Inchdairnie Distillery to take the matter to the Scottish Government to appeal the non-determination of the consent by Fife Council and the planning authority has been asked for its response to the appeal.
Interested members of the public can make representations until April 3, although Mr Palmer says the distillery is hoping to work with the council and the Scottish Government Reporter to bring the issue to a “speedy and positive outcome”.
Chris Smith, planning lead officer with Fife Council, said: “Unfortunately in assessing the application a key statutory consultee did not respond within the specified timescale.
“Subsequently the council were unable to make a decision within the target determination period and therefore the applicant’s have used their right to appeal to the Scottish ministers.”
