The Mercury Programme
The Mercury Programme is Angus Council’s visionary £1bn partnership programme between government, public, private and community sectors.
The purpose of The Mercury Programme is to increase productivity through clean growth, protecting places for future generations to live, work and visit.
Angus Council will achieve this by becoming a sustainable, low carbon region that leads the development and implementation of innovative clean technologies. These technologies will deliver increased economic growth while significantly reducing our carbon footprint and contributing to national reductions in carbon use.
The Mercury Programme has three interlinking components of investment; Clean Growth, Low Carbon, and Agri Tech.
Clean Growth
Angus Council’s ambition is to create clean growth zones in North Angus and Montrose, with new technologies being used throughout these areas to improve energy efficiency. Emerging data is used to understand the improvements required to ensure carbon reduction.
The aim is to provide improved transport connections by road, rail and sea in North Angus, creating a master plan for the area to support the planning process and growth in the area.
This work will build on the opportunities presented by:
- an expanding Montrose Port
- recent investments from major businesses
- the potential to move freight from road to rail
Additionally, new research will provide insights into new carbon capture methodologies and the reuse of agricultural plastics, both in the road infrastructure and as an alternative fuel source. New energy sources will be critical to achieving low emissions targets and will provide essential cost savings.
Low Carbon
This component of The Mercury Programme will focus on the development of low carbon and renewable solutions for transportation and energy across Angus and the wider Tay Cities region.
Low carbon transport solutions
The successful decarbonisation of Scotland’s economy requires the creation of an enabling infrastructure to accelerate clean mobility at the required scale. To do this new transport solutions will be explored, including the use of electric, biogas and hydrogen vehicles as low emission transport methods, as well as the creation of a low carbon transport corridor. The creation of the Angus Rural Mobility Hub, located just off the A90 in Brechin, aims to deliver a regional platform that will enable the decarbonisation of public transport, road freight and private transportation.
Low carbon demonstrator housing
The Mercury Programme plans to demonstrate how technological innovation in renewables, alongside energy efficient construction, can achieve zero-carbon targets in new and existing homes at a large scale.
This work aims to provide research data on the processes needed to retrofit current housing stock to zero carbon. It plans to explore the implementation of urban and rural renewable integrated energy management solutions across electricity generation, as well as air and water heating.
Agri Tech
Agriculture is a key industry in Angus. This component will look at the ability to provide a clean growth, data-driven, bio-economy approach to the sector.
Land-based agri tech innovation will be the catalyst for:
- increased and sustainable primary crop production
- improved food security and nutrition
- extension of the growing season
- better crop yields and soil
- development of new products
- a reduced carbon footprint with the aim of net-zero or, ideally, carbon-negative production systems
Authenticity and provenance are at the core of this component – important selling points for primary and associated secondary producers.
This exciting work will look to employ a field-based approach to innovation and develop a co-operative approach to data use and data capture. The work will have significance in terms of development, expansion and exploitation at regional, national and global levels.
Enquiries
Angus Council continues to seek new businesses and organisations to work with on the development of ideas and projects.
If you think that you could contribute to the Mercury Programme, please contact Mark Davidson by emailing to DavidsonMA@angus.gov.uk.
