Council / Concerns raised about plans to turn Scalloway accommodation into offices
SCALLOWAY’S community council has raised concerns about plans to turn student accommodation in the village into offices.
Shetland UHI has applied for planning permission to turn 15 en-suite bedrooms in its Port Arthur House to offices, as part of a “strategic vision” to move to a single campus – with Scalloway identified as the top choice.
But Scalloway Community Council has questioned the move, saying there will surely be “higher demand for student accommodation in and around Scalloway” if they do so.
It has also raised concerns about the potential impact the change would have on parking too.
However Shetland UHI has said the application has nothing to do with its aim of moving to a single Scalloway campus.
Shetland UHI said 24 parking spaces are available outside Port Arthur House, which it has deemed sufficient – despite saying the new offices would create space for 28 staff.
Shetland Islands Council’s (SIC) roads department has also raised concerns about the college’s proposal, calling for Shetland UHI to carry out a parking study to back up its application.
While Scalloway Community Council voiced issues with the application, it stopped short of actually objecting to the plans.
That would likely have led to the SIC’s planning committee having the final say on whether or not the move went ahead.
Shetland UHI has applied for planning permission to turn the first floor of Port Arthur House, which includes 15 bedrooms and a lounge, in to four single plan offices and 24 “hot-desk” spaces for its staff to use.
In its submission to planners, the college called the move the “proposed first stage” of a redevelopment project intended to transform its existing spaces.
It said the 24 parking spaces were “sufficient” to meet the needs of its staff, with some expected to work remotely and with the possibility that more staff may do this in future too.
Scalloway Community Council said it had concerns that there would not be enough parking for staff and students though, particularly if more students moved to the village.
It said this would affect “the limited parking in Scalloway as a whole.”
And the roads department, responding to the application, said UHI Shetland “rather misses the point” with its view that the 24 parking spaces would be sufficient.
“Given that the proposal, on the face of it, is to increase office floor space and the number of office staff ‘based’ out of Scalloway, and to increase teaching space for more students, an overall increase in parking demand would seem inevitable,” it said.
“Moreover, removing on-site student accommodation, which typically has a fairly low parking demand, thereby requiring them to travel to the campus from elsewhere, is also likely to lead to an increased demand for parking at the campus unless other transport measures are brought into play.”
Responding to the concerns, Douglas Thomson – director of architects Gilbert Associates – said the potential combination of the Lerwick and Scalloway campuses at Port Arthur was “only one of several options being explored”.
“The first-floor accommodation in Port Arthur House has not been in use as residential accommodation since 2017, so there will be no immediate impact on demand if changed to office use,” he said.
He also added the parking outside Port Arthur House should be assessed “on current application alone”, rather than on “any potential future developments”.
And Shetland UHI said this planning application did not relate to any future plans to move students to Scalloway.
“The current planning application, for the change of use of the top floor of Port Arthur House, is in no way linked to the strategic decision to have a vision and a plan by 2030 for a single campus and is about a reorganization, and refurbishment, of the way some of the current spaces, including the unused space on the top floor of Port Arthur House, at the Scalloway campus is used.
“UHI Shetland, therefore, believes that the responders have conflated two separate issues within their responses, and have based their concerns not on the planning application, but on the wider strategic vision that is still in its infancy of planning.”
It said a feasibility study about moving to a single campus, at Scalloway, was not due before October 2025.
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