A freight grant award of over £800,000 will help a Kirkcaldy flour mill go greener.

The Freight Facilities Grant funding of up to £829,000 will enable Carr’s Flour Mills Ltd to provide enhanced storage silos and handling equipment to transport wheat to its flour mill in Kirkcaldy by sea rather than road, removing almost quarter of a million lorry miles from Scotland’s roads every year.

Transport Minister Keith Brown said: "This government is committed to encouraging the transfer of freight from our roads to rail and water – indeed the Scottish Budget passed by Parliament earlier this month announced an extra £2 million under the scheme to be made available for future applications.

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"Not only will this grant awarded to Carr’s help reduce HGV movements on the trunk routes, it will also see better use of waterborne freight facilities.

“This is a clear example of the way in which the Freight Facilities Grant is helping businesses to remain competitive while finding new and more sustainable ways to deliver their goods, contributing to a Greener Scotland."

A spokesman for Carr’s added: “This project will allow us to bring in some of the different wheats we require by water rather than by road, giving us more potential to supply our customers through difficult conditions of climate and volatile commodity markets."

The project is being run with the assistance of Forth Ports as the operator of Kirkcaldy Harbour. Construction of the new silos will commence in February 2011, it is anticipated that the project should be completed in order to allow the first vessels to arrive at the harbour in the summer or early autumn.

Transferring these traffic flows to water will generate environmental benefits worth in excess of £1.3 million over the course of 10 years.

(GK)