Diageo unveils £10m cooperage plan

Drinks giant Diageo is to invest £10million by building a new cooperage in Scotland.

The development of the site at Cambus, near Alloa, is part of its major restructuring north of the border that has seen the closure of the Johnny Walker bottling plant in Kilmarnock, just 45 miles away.

Bryan Donaghey, managing director of Diageo Scotland, confirmed the cooperage will be fully operational by the summer of 2011.

Diageo's existing cooperage at Carsebridge is set to close and 40 jobs transferred to Cambus. Those employees will join 20 others relocating from the Dundashill cooperage in Glasgow.

Donaghey said: "As a business it is vital we remain globally competitive and developments like this play a fundamental role in securing the long-term sustainability of our operations in Scotland.

"The new location provides better logistical benefits and allows us to further upgrade our operations," he said.

Although 700 people were employed at Kilmarnock, a spokeswoman for Diageo said that as many as 400 new jobs will be created at a new £80m bottling plant at Leven where planning permission has just been approved and the site is due to open at the end of 2011.

"We are opening up opportunities for them to remain in our business" as well as having a targeted voluntary redundancy level from the 700 people formerly employed at Johnny Walker, she explained.

Despite the job losses, Donaghey said: "Diageo remains one of the country's largest employers with 4,000 people working across our 50 Scottish sites."