Orkney islands councillors have backed two applications – the repair of a World War Two airfield and the creation of a major community hub – to be progressed to the next stage of the Scottish Government’s regeneration capital grant fund.
The council’s community development fund sub-committee met this morning, deciding that both applications should go on to the fund’s second stage of appraisal.
The first application is for funding to restore historic buildings at the HMS Tern airfield, at Twatt in Orkney’s West Mainland.
The other is for the creation of a multi-use community hub in North Ronaldsay.
Heritage trust hope to improve HMS Tern
The Birsay Heritage Trust submitted the application for HMS Tern and is hoping to get £843,744 through the regeneration fund.
The trust hope to raise another £326,378 from other sources.
This, the trust says, would allow them to improve access to the site, repair 11 deteriorating buildings – including a B-listed control tower – and provide ‘heritage interpretation’ at the 14-acre airfield.
As a way of making sure the site can generate some income, the trust would also like to have three glamping pods as well as campervan facilities at the site.
The development would also create seven jobs as well as training and volunteering opportunities.
The trust recently received some good news, to the sum of £145,000 from Historic Environment Scotland, which will go towards emergency repairs at some of the buildings at the site.
‘A long, long way to go yet’
William Shearer from the Birsay Heritage Trust said: “There’s a long, long way to go yet but everybody in the community has been hugely supportive of the project as a whole.
“As part of the application, we had to show that their community support and we asked dozens of community groups for letters of support – we were quite overwhelmed by the number of letters we received.
“Having the council’s backing is good and the fact that the council sold the site to the trust for £1 was another huge step forward.
“We have a lot to be thankful to the council for. ”
Nearly £1 million asked for to create ‘The Pund’
The second application was submitted by North Ronaldsay Trust.
The trust is asking for £985,460 over two years from the regeneration fund.
This would be bolstered by £527,896 from other sources, to turn buildings at a property called Treb – which includes a house, shop space, store, and workshop – into a community hub, to be named ‘The Pund’, after the stone shelters used to corral the island’s famous seaweed eating sheep.
The money would be spent on turning the buildings into a processing hub for the island’s sheep, producing wool, meat, and skins while also providing research opportunities around the rare breed.
Pund will accommodate all in the community
The Pund would also house a heritage centre, meeting rooms, a dwelling, an office, and a health and wellbeing centre for use by the fire and ambulance services and NHS Orkney.
There would also be a community gym.
The plan would be to have all the facilities in The Pund powered by green technologies, such as solar panels and wind turbines.
Councillors support for competitive fund
While councillors were firm in their support of moving the applications on to the next stage of the process, it is, however, noted in the reports that the regeneration capital grant fund is competitive and tends to be oversubscribed at each stage.
In both cases, if the projects are offered a grant from the regeneration fund and it is accepted, the council will enter legal agreements with the trusts.