During the last decade of our first century the major developments included the rapid expansion of the Glasgow office, that now vies with the Aberdeen office for size, and the acquisition of an office in Inverness, and a new office in Southampton.
With the increasing workload taken on by the Glasgow office, it moved in 2011 from Clydebank into an office in St Vincent Street in the centre of Glasgow and in 2014, Glasgow based, George Bowie, became a Partner. George had been with the firm since 2002, having previously worked for Halcrow and for two major contractors. In Aberdeen, Thomas Young became a Partner in 2016, having joined the firm in 2003 after graduating from university. In 2015, Grant Alexander stood down as Principal Partner, with James Simpson taking the role of Principal, and Alan Kilbride that of Senior Partner. Andy Martin retired from the Partnership in 2016 and Grant Alexander followed in 2017.
In Aberdeen, the east end of Commercial Quay was reconstructed, and this was followed by the last of the Aberdeen Harbour quay reconstruction projects, Torry Quay, which was completed in two phases. The firm then moved on to advise the Aberdeen Harbour Board on their major new project, the development of a completely new harbour in Nigg Bay, to the south of the existing harbour which is being built at the mouth of the River Dee.
In Lerwick, major harbour developments were completed. The new Mair’s Pier was completed, creating a sheltered dock for fishing vessels and deep water berths for general use and for visiting cruise ships. The quay at the Dales Voe base was extended with a very heavy deck load capacity; at 60 tonnes per square metre it is the strongest quay in the UK. This, together with the enlargement of the base by excavation into the hillside, allowed the base to win a major oil rig decommissioning contract.
Oil rig decommissioning work was also the target of two Design and Build projects in the Cromarty Firth, for which Arch Henderson was the designer. A new quay and finger pier was designed for the Nigg Bay yard and, further up the Firth at Invergordon, a new quay was designed to front a newly reclaimed area. The Cromarty Firth clients are not only pursuing oil decommissioning work but are also busy supporting the offshore renewable energy sector.
In Glasgow, the office provided engineering services to Clydeport across all of its Scottish sites, working on its Glasgow Harbour housing developments, and on a marina and housing in Ardrossan. Following the work for Clydeport, its owners, Peel Ports, commissioned the firm to undertake new work at the Royal Seaforth Grain Terminal and at its Animal Feed Storage facilities, both in Liverpool, and at other sites across the UK.
BAE SYSTEMS commissioned Arch Henderson to evaluate all its Clyde shipbuilding sites, to ‘future proof’ them. Options for new works were developed. At the Scotstoun yard, these included plans for a new covered dry dock, for manufacturing sheds and for upgraded infrastructure. And for the Govan yard plans were prepared for a new shipbuilding hall and for external berths. The project proceeded as a series of packages with the initial work being the upgrading of the dry docks and new gates.
At Western Ferries Hunter’s Quay and McInroy's Point terminals, the firm oversaw the replacement of the older linkspans and the upgrading of the ferries’ overnight berth at nearby Kilmun. And, for Peel Ports, the firm designed new deep water dry dock facilities at Hunterston as well as their new Gourock Cruise Ship Terminal in Inverclyde.
The Inverness office, which had worked on almost all of Diageo’s malt distilleries in Scotland, continued to work on a wide range of distillery projects. Recent work included projects at some of Scotland’s finest distilleries such as Glen Ord, Inchgower, Glen Elgin, Linkwood, Mortlach and Cardhu, all but the first sited in Speyside, but work was also carried out at one island distillery, Talisker in Skye, maintaining the Arch Henderson link with island projects.
The decade also saw work being undertaken on the UK’s leading fish markets. It started with the upgrading of the fish market in Grimsby to modern standards and continued with a major contract in Peterhead where a large new market was designed. In Shetland new larger fish markets were designed for Lerwick and Scalloway; the new Lerwick market being built on the new Mair’s Quay.
As the decade drew to a close Arch Henderson was delighted to see the Dublin Port Ro-Ro Jetty Project shortlisted for ‘Engineering Project of the Year’ at the Engineers Ireland Excellence Awards, 2019. Arch Henderson delivered the full detailed design alongside our Partners GDG and Camtech Engineering. The new Ro-Ro Jetty, designed to accommodate the world’s largest short sea Ro-Ro cargo ferries, is an integral part of Dublin Port Company’s multi-million euro redevelopment of Alexandra Basin.
