The team behind the recent rescue of an award-winning Scots brewery has begun moves to secure part of the doomed Johnnie Walker plant in Ayrshire.

The move would secure dozens of jobs and see a range of beers and a new adult-orientated soft drinks line bottled within a section of the Kilmarnock site, or on land previously promised to Johnnie Walker’s owners Diageo by the local authority.

The firm behind the Arran Brewery, relaunched out of receivership in the summer of last year, has begun talks about taking on a small fraction of the 900-strong Johnnie Walker workforce to provide an instantly available cadre of skilled workers.

The decision by Scotland’s oldest brewery, Belhaven, to shut its bottling plant in East Lothian, where some of the Arran bottling took place, has led Marketing Management Services International (MMSI) to seek cost-effective alternatives.

Transporting a completed bottled beer from Arran not an option as the cost of transportation to the mainland was one of the factors that led Arran’s previous owner into administration.

Gerald Michaluk, who heads MMSI, said closure of Belhaven’s Dunbar plant had created a bottling shortage, with his firm confident of securing the contracts to bottle beers from other Scottish microbreweries and expanding to a workforce of up to 100 within five years.

Mr Michaluk has held a series of meetings with East Ayrshire Council, as recently as Monday, with both sides describing the discussions as positive, although Diageo has yet to offer any feedback to the firm.

The brewing giant said that its main concern is addressing issues of severance payments and relocation of its workforce and that it will have a presence in Kilmarnock until May 2012.

Privately, MMSI does not believe that beyond a potential interim facility it will have any long-term future at the Johnnie Walker plant, and is confident Diageo will progress with its own plans.

But the company believes a more sustainable and realistic option is land previously offered to Diageo by the council.

Mr Michaluk claims a prompt planning process would have a new Kilmarnock bottling plant functioning within a year.

However, he has also stressed that MMSI still has an option to establish its own bottling operation in Hartlepool, in north-east England.

Last night, he said: “We had a very productive and successful meeting with East Ayrshire and we have a plan to move forward.

“Kilmarnock is now a very serious contender but Hartlepool is still in the frame. We’re close to deciding, and need to decide very quickly.

“We wouldn’t be providing a large number of jobs, but we certainly would need skilled engineers, of the sort immediately available in Kilmarnock.”

One product Mr Michaluk is looking to developand market is a new range of soft drinks, the recipes for which have been sourced from the UK’s last temperance bar in the north of England.

He said Arran was on the expansion trail, and that the firm aimed to develop its Red Squirrel cask brand in bars as well as building on its existing bottled sales.

However, there are no plans to launch a new mainland brewery, and beer production will stay on Arran.

East Ayrshire’s deputy chief executive Elizabeth Morton said: “A very productive meeting was held with

Arran Brewery on Monday, and the council will continue to work closely with the company in regards to their plans.”

A Diageo spokesman said: “We are still in consultation with our employees in terms of relocation and severance packages and focusing on what is good for our people and employees.

“There is a significant timescale involved in this and our response to incoming requests for the supply of services is to put them to the side.”

The move into administration last year of the award-winning Arran Brewery during the worst economic downturn in living memory seemed to spell the end of a product that had become quintessentially Scottish in such a short space of time.

However, the intervention of a leading marketing specialist not only saved the island microbrewery’s 11 staff, but could also take the range of beers from the tourist and delicatessen markets to the mainstream.

In snapping up the brewery in May 2008 for an undisclosed sum, Gerald Michaluk, pictured, brushed aside concerns about the UK beer market and wider economy. His Glasgow-based Marketing Management Services International instead concentrated on figures showing a rise in the real ale market by 10%.

Mr Michaluk believes he can turn a failing brand into a product with a £5 million-a-year turnover.