The announcement today that Global Energy Group has agreed a deal to buy the mothballed Nigg fabrication yard is the best news to come out of the Highlands of Scotland in the last decade.

There is a collective sigh of relief blowing down from the North. For many years now, since the yard was put on hold almost 10 years ago, business leaders, politicians and the local communities have watched with frustration and despair as first one plan to breathe new life into the site, and then another, and another, petered out into pipedreams.

During that time we have seen rust creep over what were once fine facilities and plant deteriorate as hopes were raised and dashed time and again.

Two years ago, Fifth Ring held an intimate thought leadership session in Inverness on the renewables industry called “The Power to Change”. The closed-door event was attended by 12 of the leading players in the Highlands, from key business figures, heads of industry bodies and elected representatives to senior local government officials. The message from that session was clear – a successful renewables industry for Scotland needed a fully functioning Nigg. We all left, clear that there was a will to do something – but unsure how it could be achieved.

In a sense, watching the demise of Nigg has been like watching the Titanic slowly sinking. We could all see that this once great yard, which in its heyday in the 1970s employed up 5,000 men, was going down - but none of us believed we had the power or the ability individually to do anything about it. Clearly Roy MacGregor and his team at Global Energy Group had other ideas.

Getting agreement from KBR and the Wakelyn Trust to agree to the sale is a remarkable achievement – one which some of us thought would never happen.

Now, hopefully, we can look forward to a brighter future for the once proud yard. Global has indicated that the oil and gas and renewables industries will form the focus of activity on the site. Indeed, Nigg’s excellent location, beside one of Scotland’s largest deep water ports, with 365 day a year sheltered access and proximity to market, would make it the ideal choice as the fabrications hub for the country’s growing renewables industry, especially offshore wind.

It’s also good news for the economy of the Highlands, as jobs are expected to be created all along the chain.

And it delivers an incredible shot of confidence in the ageing North Sea oil and gas industry, the stuttering renewables industry and the North of Scotland as a whole as the UK economy teeters on the edge of recession.

For many years, and despite whatever good news has come out of the Highlands at the time, Nigg has always been there as a symbol of economic downturn, hardship and loss. Its reawakening gives us all hope for optimism.