News / Relief over Eric Gray
PARENTS have voiced their relief after SIC councillors agreed that the hockey pitch at Seafield will be earmarked for the new Eric Gray care centre.
The move from social services committee chairman Cecil Smith during Wednesday’s Full Council meeting was an attempt to provide reassurance to parents of children or adults with additional support needs.
Confusion was caused after it emerged last month that, back in September, councillors had agreed in private to allow officials to begin negotiations about leasing part of the site to a caravan and camping group.
Planning consent for a £4.5 million replacement Eric Gray centre on the hockey field was granted back in 2011 – but the project was placed on the backburner due to financial constraints.
That left parents fearing that the previous designs and preliminary work would be consigned to the waste bin.
But Smith’s handwritten notice of motion, tabled at short notice and signed by eight members, was designed to allay those concerns.
It stated that “any continuing negotiation with the caravan group should not include the hockey pitch at Seafield, and the council agrees that this site is set aside for the replacement Eric Gray”.
The motion was unanimously backed by members.
Explaining his reasoning, Smith referred to how several councillors had held “difficult and emotional conversations” with constituents in recent weeks.
“There has been widespread concern amongst our vulnerable people and their families,” he said, “and I feel it’s important that the council acts quickly to allay their fears and give some assurance that we are not abandoning them.”
Smith said families had understood the reasons why the project had been delayed – but “felt let down” when they belatedly learnt of the possibility that the hockey field might be given over to the camping and caravan group.
While he could not guarantee when the project will get underway, Smith said he hoped parents would be “relieved” that when funding does become available the SIC won’t have to start from scratch.
Parent Kenny Groat told BBC Radio Shetland he was “very happy” with the news – “especially for the younger parents and the single parents with special needs bairns”.
“There’s been a lot of, I would say, anger,” said Groat. “[We were] thinking everything was going to be lost that people had put so much time and effort into.”
Smith added that a “checklist of where we are with the project” would be compiled and put before the social services committee before the end of March.
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