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Setting New Goals

Vision, drive and commitment have been key in “local loon” Stewart Milne building one of the UK’s most successful businesses from the North-east of Scotland.

Now he, with several other top entrepreneurs from the area, is using his business acumen and skill to try to secure a prosperous future for the area in which he has created wealth and employment.

However he has a stark warning - without a radical transition many companies like his Stewart Milne Group could pull out of the North-east in the future.

He is determined to play a key role in driving the transformation which will not only prevent that but will help draw new business to his home territory.

“I have held the view for some time that the region has to go through a fairly major transition over the next 10-15 years,” he told Business Bulletin.

“We have to recognise we have done well in building a very strong economy with high levels of employment and a very significant percentage of the jobs in the region are high value with a very high average wage - but I sometimes think we are a wee bit less than honest with ourselves in recognising how we have got where we are.

“To a great extent it has been driven by what has happened in the North Sea over the last 35 years or so. It hasn’t been because we have had a strong clear long term plan of how the region was going to develop.

“What is happening is that for many of the now substantial businesses which have grown up in Aberdeen and the North-east a comparatively low percentage of their activity is now related to this area.

“They serve many other parts of the UK, Europe and the world from Aberdeen, which is a great thing, but if their business is elsewhere they need a very good reason for retaining Aberdeen and the North-east as their base.

“That’s part of the transition we have to make over the next 10-15 years. I and many others strongly believe that if we are going to achieve that transition successfully and retain this high level of prosperity for the region we need a very robust long term plan of how we are going to reshape the North-east.

“I think in the last couple of years we have started to make real progress.”

Stewart Milne, a farmworker’s son from Tough, near Alford, served his apprenticeship as an electrician before starting his company in 1975 with a friend.

They were prepared to do anything from fixing kettles and rewiring to bathroom conversions to get their business off the ground and promised that he would one day build “heaps and heaps of houses around Aberdeen.”

Now, as one of the UK’s largest independent housebuilders he builds heaps and heaps of houses around the country, delivers major construction and commercial development projects, as well as social housing projects, and has more than 1000 employees.

As long as he remains chairman and chief executive the Group will be firmly rooted in the North-east but he points out that he will not always be at the helm

“Over the next five, 10, 15 years a number of companies are going to pose themselves the question: “Where is the best location for us to be for the next 20, 30, 40 years? Is it Aberdeen and the North-east? What is the real reason for staying here?

“That is the huge challenge we face – ensuring that when these companies do pose the question there is enough in the North-east to make it very, very difficult for them to leave. We want it to remain the place for them to be and we shouldn’t underestimate how competitive all the other regions of Europe are in trying to attract new investment.

“A world class infrastructure for the North-east is fundamental. For what this region has achieved over the last 35 years I think the infrastructure and our general connectivity with the rest of Europe, and the world, falls way short of what it should be so that is undoubtedly a central area to drive very hard.”

He said that poor infrastructure had directly impacted on his group.

“For some time in our timber frame business we served the whole of the UK from Westhill. We now have a factory in Oxford serving our English customers but we are still serving our Scottish customers from Westhill and it is far from ideal, especially bearing in mind that we ship all the raw materials up to start with and then we have to ship our finished goods back down to our main markets.

“That is something which has to be acknowledged – we are some distance from most of our main markets so good infrastructure is vital.

“We are recognised as the major oil centre in Europe and the aim is to change that to gain world recognition as one of the key players in future energy.”

As a member of the board of ACSEF he is confident of overcoming the challenges.

“The fact we have established ACSEF is a huge step forward in its own right, he said.

“It includes the city and shire, the Chamber of Commerce, Scottish Enterprise and the private sector, all united in one body with a common purpose to look forward.

“A long term plan has been developed and in the last 18 months a new structure plan has been developed which covers the city and shire and is the first new structure plan to be approved in Scotland.

“My company, and many others, have been very critical of previous structure plans in that they were very conservative and short term in their outlook. I think the whole approach which has been adopted by this one, and the local plans, has been extremely encouraging and has taken very much a long term view and it has also been quite aggressive in its outlook.

“We have created an immense amount over the last 35 years and this region has one of the best workforces, probably in Europe, in terms of skills, capabilities and attitude and we must use that as an anchor to help keep companies in the North- east.

“For me creating an attractive environment is also one of the key elements of the long term plan including bringing back to life the centre of a city we can all be proud of.

“At the moment Aberdeen city centre is not used anything like it should be, either by the people of the North-east, or to attract more UK and overseas visitors.

“For many it has become a shopping and clubbing centre which they avoid when they can and we badly need a masterplan of how we are going to make it a far more attractive proposition. It must have the potential to create a major asset in establishing Aberdeen as one of the top European cities – somewhere people want to go and see.

“A vital part of that has to be the current opportunity at Union Terrace Gardens and if we blow that this time it will be disastrous for the city and region. It would be almost criminal if we don’t grasp Sir Ian Wood’s offer of a £50 million gift and rally round and ensure this vital project is delivered.”

He points to the lack of a city by-pass as an example of how things must change.

“We have been speaking about a western peripheral route for the last 50 years and it is within sight. I am not convinced that in the early days of oil coming to Aberdeen we had the vision of what we might have created if there had been a robust plan to see it through.

“The western peripheral route is an example of something which would have been central to that plan and we could have used a lot of powerful levers over the years to have it delivered a lot sooner than it’s going to be.

“I would like that to be central to our approach in the future – to identify the elements which are crucial and do everything we ourselves can within our powers, while at the same time exerting maximum pressure on other quarters to ensure we achieve it at the end of the day.”