The billionaire industrialist Jim Ratcliffe has ruled out Scotland as the base for his £700m project to build a new hi-tech, off-road car, amid suggestions his strained relationship with the Scottish government was a factor.
The news comes months after Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest man and founder of chemicals giant Ineos, which owns the Grangemouth industrial plant, took the Scottish government to court over its refusal to allow fracking in Scotland.
A source close to the project said: “Scotland is out of the picture. There isn’t that much to recommend it when you consider the treatment Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos have endured at the hands of the Scottish government.”
An insider added: “There is space at Grangemouth to expand, and from a marketing point of…