News / New flats for hotel staff
THE SITE of the former Judane knitwear factory on Lerwick’s North Road is to be redeveloped into accommodation for hotel workers.
The owners of the nearby Shetland Hotel have successfully gained planning permission to turn the site, which has been derelict for years, into a single-story block of six flats for its staff.
The hotel is run Brudolff Hotels Group and company chairman Robert Smith hopes construction work will get underway next year.
“As a hotel group, we have the three hotels in Lerwick and we’ve always felt that we’re a bit short on staff accommodation,” he said.
The area will include four new parking spaces, with two more spaces set to be merged into the adjacent Shetland Hotel car park.
Each flat will feature a living room/kitchen and its own entrance.
The block’s walls will be made from dark silver metal cladding, with the metallic roof coloured dark grey to make it more compatible with industrial buildings nearby.
“We did try to design something like how it might have looked before, so hopefully it will blend in,” Smith added.
Planning permission was originally granted in 2007 to build ten flats on site, but it expired.
The dilapidated vacant Judane building was demolished in 2014, with only a concrete slab foundation remaining.
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