I have lived in and around Glasgow and Paisley for the last 10 years and even before enjoying whisky I would travel past the Chivas building in Paisley regularly. Sitting between a college and an out of town shopping centre the architecture clearly showed success and opulence. I have added to my list of potential articles to look into the history of the site and what it was used for over the years.
For now though the story of the site is in the process of changing now and details of the future have been released this week. I think I mentioned on twitter that bottling operations are being centralised in Dumbarton in what is a much newer site in a process which mirrors that of the bottling plant for “Johnnie Walker” (Diageo) in Kilmarnock. The original story from 3 years ago can be found at https://www.the-gazette.co.uk/news/15028464.chivas-brothers-confirm-closure-of-paisley-facility/
The point now is what will happen to the large 24 acre site and it appears the council have taken over almost all of it. The plan is to use this for economic development and the process of consulting on potential uses has begun. The objective is to boost education, transport and jobs with the land but not all of the land will be owned by the council.
Bridge of Weir leather works is one of the largest leather manufacterers in the UK and are just around the corner from me. They specialise among other things in leather for cars and they have expanded their operation into Paisley with the purchase of one of the buildings on the site. This will create another 100 skilled jobs in the business and help some of the pain from the 400+ jobs gone from the current bottling operations.
Malted 