News / Laings chemist to make move across town
A CHEMIST that has been based in Lerwick’s old town centre since the late nineteenth century is to flit across town to new premises at Sound in the first half of next year.
A.L. Laing, which has been situated at the Market Cross on Commercial Street since 1888, will move to Kantersted Road in spring 2017 where it will trade under the name Laings Pharmacy.
The pharmacy is owned by WHB Sutherland, which also owns the Freefield chemist on the town’s Commercial Road along with two pharmacies in Orkney and two in Thurso.
Planning consent to turn the building, which has been unoccupied in recent years, into a pharmacy was granted by the SIC’s planning department.
It noted the development would be in a mixed use area where “business, commercial and residential developments co-exist well”. The building had previously housed a paint shop and Tay-cad’s graphic design business.
Planners also said that, with no other pharmacies nearby, the new premises would provide a service to a substantial number of houses nearby. NHS Shetland has also given its thumbs up to the move.
WHB Sutherland managing director Torquil Clyde said he hoped it would give Lerwick’s pharmacies a better geographical balance.
He told Shetland News that, in many years of business, closing up the Commercial Street shop – some 129 years after it first opened – was “one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make”.
“It was a really, really difficult decision… but it’s such an old building, and I’m really struggling to bring it up to modern standards for where pharmacies need to be now,” Clyde said.
“In 1888 when Laings started on that site, Lerwick was a town based along the lanes and along the shore, and of course it’s a completely different-shaped town now.”
He said there were around 900 houses in the Sound area, a number that is “growing all the time”, and along with the availability of good car-parking that could lead to an improvement in trade.
Clyde hopes the new premises will be open around April or May but “I’ve got quite a lot of work to do on the building to bring it up to modern standards, and it’s unlikely we’ll get them done ‘til the start of the better weather”.
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