Preconstruction Safety Report for Whisky Maturation Site

Arthian supported the development of a major whisky maturation site, featuring tanker offloading, bulk storage and blending, cask operations, and 40 maturation warehouses.

The site, a repurposed historic military storage facility, posed challenges due to phased construction alongside occupied warehouses and an operational COMAH site.

Arthian’s contributions included:

• Preparing COMAH documentation for the Competent Authority.
• Identifying major accident hazards.
• Fire modelling for process releases and warehouse fires.
• Occupied building risk assessment and fire mitigation planning.
• Environmental impact assessment (CDOIF).
• Human Factors assessment and integration planning.
• ALARP demonstration.
• Authoring the Pre-Construction Safety Report and liaising with HSE and SEPA.

Arthian supported the developer in assessing and documenting a compliant design.

Arthian identified opportunities for risk reduction throughout the studies, supporting the site in reducing risk ALARP.

The fire modelling activities required Arthian to utilise skills in fire modelling software (DNV Phast) and application of empirical fire models to predict the extent and intensity for warehouse fires.  A neighbouring oil storage site was analysed in case of fire escalation with significant potential for environmental impact.

The occupied building risk assessment used Arthian knowledge of building construction in high hazard environments and  principals  of  hierarchy of risk reduction to propose pragmatic solutions to redeveloping the site layout to keep staff and visitors safe.

Arthian combined expertise in process safety, ecology and contaminated land to prepare a robust environmental tolerability assessment. 

The PCSR was submitted on project timescales, and Arthian supported the client in engagement with the HSE.

Arthian then supported the developer in engaging with investors and stakeholders to update on project timescales. and agreeing next steps for the phased construction and operation, such that the Operator maintained compliance with COMAH.