Scottish salmon: Norwegian firm plans giant 90,000-tonne fish farm inside island hills

Norwegian Mountain Salmon (NMS), which is working on a similar pilot project in its home country, has earmarked sites in the Outer Hebrides and Shetland for a potential new scheme.

The cutting-edge facility would be capable of producing 90,000 tonnes of farmed Scottish salmon each year, boosting overall national production by around 40 per cent and creating up to 200 jobs.

The innovative design, built mainly underground, would be very different from the traditional open-cage set-ups currently operating in Scottish seas and would offer a more eco-friendly way of mass-producing salmon, they say.

Mealista, an uninhabited privately owned crofting estate in the Uig area of the Isle of Lewis, is currently the favoured location for the scheme.

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The plant would include 224 separate fish tanks, each measuring 22 meters wide, which would be supplied with seawater through a network of pipes.

The only visible infrastructure would be a pier.

According to the company, the land-based operation would avoid some of the biggest challenges facing fish farmers – such as sea lice, predation, disease and bad weather – improving the survival rate of farmed fish and presenting lower impacts on the wider environment.

Scottish salmon is the UK’s top food export, worth around £885 million to the economy last year.

Scottish ministers have previously expressed an aim to see production ramped up to reach up to 400,000 tonnes a year, but output has been falling in recent years due to a combination of factors – production in 2022 was 169,194 tonnes, an 18 per cent drop from 2021.

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NMS has already been in discussions with local councillors and the owners of the estate over the past year, according to a report in The Scotsman’s sister paper The Stornoway Gazette, but until last week there had been no local awareness of the proposed £581 million development.

Duncan Macinnes, depute leader of Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and secretary of the Western Isles Fishermen’s Association, said the project would be “transformational” and a huge boost to the island economy.

NMS chief executive Bård Hjelmen told the paper the project was at a “very early stage” and a site in Shetland was also being considered.

He said their development in Norway, currently in planning, had been progressed with “very tight co-operation with local inhabitants”.

He added: “You need that kind of co-operation to establish such a facility.”

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The industry body for Scottish salmon producers has welcomed the plans and their innovative nature.

Tavish Scott, chief executive of Salmon Scotland, said: “Having been in touch with the company, this is a project at a very early stage.

“There will be local and national interest in Norwegian Mountain Salmon’s proposals as they develop their concept and detailed plans.”

He added: “The blue economy is the future of worldwide food production.

“Therefore new developments and technologies will be part of feeding the world with aquaculture.

“The Scottish Government’s Aquaculture, Innovation and Export strategies all encourage the sustainable growth of the sector here in Scotland.

“We need therefore to be open for business and it will be important that the Scottish Government redouble their commitment to sensible regulatory reform – better regulation, not less – to ensure that both existing and new fish farm operations can succeed.”

But some islanders are less than enthusiastic.

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Sarah Wilson, who lives near the proposed Lewis site, says she is “disgusted and horrified” at the plans.

“I feel I can barely string together any sentences which could help people understand the monstrous nature of what is being proposed,” she said.

She raised concerns over the impacts on wildlife and the environment, with the site in a national scenic area that is home to the likes of otters, shags and sea eagles.

Another resident, who did not want to be named, said: “This is an atrocity. Mealista is an abandoned village, just south of Breanais and 45 miles from Stornoway.

“It lies at the end of a long single-track road, with no infrastructure of note in the vicinity.

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“This is a typical attitude of 'nobody is here, so nobody will care'.

“We have had plenty trouble with caged salmon farming – I remember with revulsion the stench from lorries carrying dead fish for destruction on to the ferry.

“And what is going to happen to the run-off from these tanks?”