‘In a nutshell, my roots are in Scotland’ – Scarborough Group founder …

High-profile industry veteran opens up on powerhouses, freeports and bureaucratic inertia.

By Scott Reid

Published 20th Dec 2023, 04:57 GMT

Kevin McCabe may be proudly Yorkshire ^[1] born and bred and his business empire may have Scarborough ^[2] Group International above the door, but the septuagenarian property veteran has decades of Scottish legacy upon which to reflect.

Those connections with Scotland ^[3] remain strong – Scarborough is one of the parties involved in ambitious plans to create a major port, shipbuilding, manufacturing and logistics cluster along Rosyth’s waterfront on the northern banks of the River Forth ^[4], with the potential for thousands of jobs. Having began his career on a building site and risen through the ranks, McCabe’s first foray into the world of business ownership came in the 1970s when he established County Properties with a £10,000 loan from Bank of Scotland. Now in his mid-70s, the former Sheffield ^[5] United owner’s passion for the cut and thrust of the commercial property world and his vocal support for its role in regenerating communities and creating employment shows little sign of waning.

“I really wish governments could understand the importance of getting businesses going and keeping them going,” asserts McCabe, who grew up in a working-class family in Sheffield in the 1940s to a World War Two soldier father and a school worker mother. “To do so we need things called buildings and property. We do not need to bring in complicated rules. It’s a nuisance to a nation that needs revitalising.”

Kevin McCabe is the founder of property development and investment business Scarborough Group International. Picture: Mark Newton Photography

McCabe was speaking in the wake of a UK government decision to scale back sections of the HS2 high-speed rail link between London and the Midlands and cancel its proposed northern leg, with potential consequences for improved connectivity with Scotland. He is insistent that the Westminster administration should have “stuck to their guns” and expresses concern that, when it comes to major publicly-backed infrastructure projects, Britain risks “lagging behind in a big way”.

“It’s been a bit scarring these last few weeks,” McCabe says. “When governments make decisions you begin to strategise and change the shape of your business years ahead because of what they announced. For them to cut across and just kill it – well, you shake your head and think, where next?

“We’re not just about London. We’ve all been reliant on this Northern Powerhouse drive and the key dates that have helped, certainly in our case, to get money from international colleagues. We’ve sold them the fact that this is a true commitment from central government to ensure that big cities are going to benefit. All of a sudden it’s gone.”

The one word that McCabe keeps returning to is partnership. He argues that true urban regeneration is a complex process involving a range of stakeholders, often with conflicting objectives, opinions and timescales. Many of the big projects that Scarborough is involved with require a “long-term vision and commitment”.

The firm is involved with the ambitious Queensferry One regeneration project at Rosyth, Fife.

The Queensferry One scheme at Rosyth, centred on a 120-acre brownfield site, is at the heart of the Forth Green Freeport bid. Since the group acquired the wider site, it has delivered some 250,000 square feet of office space and provided around 30 acres of serviced development plots for smaller requirements.

With remediation works for the rest of the site now complete, the final 90 acres of land have been unlocked offering the potential for up to one million square feet of industrial and logistics space, making it one the largest development sites in the Central Belt, capable of supporting thousands of new jobs.

“The Green Freeport ^[6] status gives such buoyancy and uniqueness to what can be done to make Rosyth and Queensferry One ^[7] a hub area for Scotland’s Central Belt and further afield,” observes McCabe, who, in 2005, at a time of rapid growth for the company, left his family home in Scarborough and moved to Brussels for over a decade in order to establish the group’s international presence and significant expansion. “With the Green Freeport plan there is also a good chance of the ferry service being resurrected at Rosyth,” he adds.

“One of the reasons we first got involved with the site is that the father of Gavin Masterton [the former treasurer of Bank of Scotland] worked at Rosyth. It employed so many people and there have been so many spin-offs. Gavin’s family roots being there was one reason why we became involved in the plans to redevelop the whole of the dockyard area.”

McCabe’s storied career in the property world is firmly rooted in Scotland, after Bovis in Sheffield decided to open an office in Edinburgh. Offered the role of project manager, he made the move north of the Border. Subsequently, many of Scarborough’s offshoots have been registered in Scotland with key projects over the years involving the firm including the likes of Princes Exchange at Tollcross ^[8], Edinburgh.

“In a nutshell, my roots are in Scotland. I learnt so much and made so many business friends,” reflects McCabe. “When I decided to go on my own in the mid-70s I borrowed £10,000 in an era when it was a bowler-hatted branch manager. That led to building up that trust and confidence between financier and businessman that was the making of what we have done. We have been one of the most active developers, not in terms of size of developments per se, but activities underway in places like Dingwall, Nairn, Elgin and bigger ones such as in Inverness.”

Despite the property development sector suffering a perfect storm of high interest rates ^[9], soaring costs and reined-in public spending, Scarborough’s founder remains resolutely upbeat.

“We’ve got to cure the problems of inflation ^[10] and get back to reasonable interest rates,” he says. “Most people in our industry – construction and property development – have scaled up by ploughing money back into the business. The government has to do some politics now that are there to inspire businesses to have that confidence to grow again. Fortunately, we are an experienced company with good people working for us.”

References

^{^} Yorkshire (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} Scarborough (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} Scotland (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} River Forth (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} Sheffield (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} Green Freeport (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} Queensferry One (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} Tollcross (www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com)
^{^} interest rates (www.scotsman.com)
^{^} inflation (www.scotsman.com)