Council / Hockey pitch in Lerwick among options for Brae school project
Long hoped for surface could be built if SIC decides to buy Brae hockey pitch
A HOCKEY pitch in Lerwick is among the options being considered as part of plans to replace the Brae football pitch with a new school.
If the proposed new Brae education campus goes ahead then it could be built on the pitch currently used by Delting Football Club, with a need to find somewhere for the club to play.
Shetland Islands Council is proposing to either build a new synthetic football pitch on the current school site once the buildings are demolished, or to potentially purchase the Brae hockey pitch and resurface it for football.
In that scenario, the council said it would look to construct a dedicated, all-weather hockey pitch next to the new North Loch 3G pitch in Lerwick.
The council said it was aware of “longstanding interest” in having a hockey pitch back in Lerwick, with hockey players currently having just one outdoor surface in Shetland.
The options will come before councillors at their full council meeting on Wednesday morning.
Shetland Netball had also called for the current Brae games hall to be extended in order to host competitive netball matches.
However the council will recommend that elected members reject this proposal, calling it “complicated and expensive”.
Estimates have suggested that the Brae education campus could now open in late 2028, possibly in October.
In January 2024 the SIC approved an outline business case for the Brae campus, with an estimated cost of approximately £42.5 million, subject to the approval of a full business case which has yet to come in front of councillors.
It had been expected that the full business case would be considered later this year, but the timeline has now slipped to spring 2027.
The Scottish Government has already committed to providing half of the funding, though this will come over a 25-year period.
Currently the proposal is for the new school to be built on Delting’s grass football pitch – behind the current site – with the old building then demolished.
Councillors will be asked to instruct the education department to carry out an appraisal on the two potential options for the replacement of the Brae pitch.
The first of these is to build a synthetic football pitch on the existing school site, which would not be able to be used for competitive hockey.
The second is to buy the Brae hockey pitch from Shetland Recreational Trust (SRT) and resurface it for football use.
That scenario would then allow for the potential creation of a new hockey pitch in Lerwick, at the Clickimin site.
The SIC said that the Brae project board was “clear” that reducing the number of available pitches would be “unacceptable”.
It said that the Brae football pitch was the sole footballing surface for the North Mainland, while there were no other hockey pitches available.
The council said its initial analysis showed that “there may be more cost-effective options than rebuilding a synthetic pitch on the current school site”.
It added that further assessment was required, however.
From early talks with the SRT it was clear that they would be willing to sell the Brae hockey pitch, the council said.
The pitch was “nearing its end-of-life”, the SIC added, with an estimated remaining lifespan of under five years.
The council’s own estimates said that the school could be delivered in October 2028, with the potential new synthetic football pitch on the old school site then opened a year later.
However, the council said the timeline for the project could be reduced if an all-weather pitch was built in Lerwick “simultaneously to the construction of the new campus”.
No cost estimates for either option were given at this stage.
Shetland Netball had also requested that the existing games hall be extended by a further 7.5 metres to allow for competitive matches to be played.
Currently the only full-sized netball court in Shetland is at the Clickimin.
In a letter to the SIC, netball development manager Vicki Smith said the addition of another full-sized court “will only benefit players and help them develop and compete more successfully against teams from the mainland”.
“We would be able to host more district and Scottish Schools matches in Shetland and host more teams travelling up to play,” she said.
“We would like to host the invitational netball Island Games at some point in the future and having two full sized netball courts in Shetland would bring us one step closer to doing this.”
However the SIC said the Brae project board were recommending councillors turn down this request.
“The extension of the games hall will incur additional costs to the project,” it said.
“It was noted that the site is currently restricted in size and any works to accommodate the additional space will be complicated and expensive.”
The council added that “significant costs” for extending the hall “could challenge the viability of the project”.
These costs would all have to be met by the SIC, it said.
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