Inverarity Morton to close regional depot

Changes to drink driving laws in Scotland have been cited as one of the reasons behind a decision by the country’s largest independent wine and spirits merchant to close its Kinross-shire regional depot.

Inverarity Morton managing director, Stephen Russell

Inverarity Morton (IM) will close its  Milnathort depot in Kinross-shire from March with full closure by May, putting almost 30 jobs at risk. The company blamed the closure on “tough trading conditions” and “spiralling maintenance costs” and said that closing the depot was “the most feasible option”.

Changes to Scotland’s drink driving laws, which in 2014 saw the drink-driving limit cut from 35 microgrammes per 100 millilitres of breath to just 22 before Christmas, one of the lowest limits in Europe, were also cited as one of the key factors.

“The last twelve months haven’t been easy for the licensed trade,” said managing director Stephen Russell. “A lot of businesses are counting the cost of the after-math of the new drink:drive legislation in Scotland and continued slow economic recovery. Poor trading has had a knock-on effect on our business.

“We conducted a full business audit in order to identify ways to cut costs without compromising our service. Moving our entire business under one roof made complete commercial sense and will allow us to operate far more effectively and efficiently.”

The company, which employs over 200 people, moved its headquarters to Glasgow last year following a £3 million refurbishment.

The Kinross-shire depot came with IM’s acquisition of Forth Wines in 2013. However more than £500,000 is now needed to upgrade the site. Instead the 75,000 sq ft site will be put up for sale.

“At the time of the acquisition, having a second depot was invaluable, because we were bursting at the seams in our old HQ”, added Russell. “Now that we have moved, we are more than able to absorb the entire Milnathort operation within our existing infrastructure so our customers will see little or no difference to the way their accounts are managed.”

The firm has said it will now begin a consultation process with affected staff and will be considering relocation packages to its Glasgow HQ to minimise redundancies.