Hjaltland hoping to build 12 new town flats
THE FORMER housing department offices look set to be demolished to make way for a dozen new one-bedroom flats in the heart of Lerwick’s old town.
If Hjaltland Housing Association’s application is approved at Tuesday’s planning board meeting, as council officials are recommending, it will provide a much needed boost to the supply of social housing.
The building at Fort Road was vacated by SIC housing staff in May 2009, when the department moved to offices at the North Ness.
The plans are effectively an extension of the new block of flats being built where the old North Star venue and Excelsior pub once stood on the corner of Harbour Street.
A dearth of homes has seen Shetland’s waiting list for social housing standing close to 1,000 for several years. The problem has been aggravated by the influx of construction workers to help build major projects such as the £800 million Total gas plant.
Hjaltland’s property services manager Paul Leask said the association was doing everything it could to ensure more new houses are built.
“The already urgent need for more affordable housing in Shetland is currently being exacerbated by an increase in population due to the influx of workers required to complete the capital projects currently being undertaken in the islands,” Leask said.
“The association is therefore working very hard, and in partnership with the SIC is continuing with its new build development programme and is hopeful of getting started on site with the Fort Road project in the near future.”
Leask said Hjaltland was “delighted with the look and quality of the new Excelsior Place building”, which is due to be completed in the spring, and has appointed the same design team for the project’s next phase.
Edinburgh-based architecture firm Gilberts has been working on the plans. Its director Dougie Thomson said the Fort Road flats would be of a similar design to those at Excelsior Place.
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“All the flats have living rooms facing outwards to get the best view across the harbour,” he said, “ and with a sheltered garden and drying green to the rear.”
Thomson added that the same construction methods and materials which had served the first phase of the project well were also proposed.
He said the design was intended to ensure the new flats fitted within Fort Road and remained “sympathetic” to Lerwick as a whole when viewed from the harbour.
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