Meeting to discuss glasshouses
Plans to bring a redundant glasshouse in Tingwall back to life will be discussed at a public meeting to gauge levels of interest.
Environment action group Transition Shetland wants to turn the 2,500 square metre building into a community growing centre and commissioned a £20,000 feasibility study into buying and restoring the glasshouse.
That has been completed by a team, led by Scalloway-based consultants AB Associates, including Richard Gibson Architects, RG Jamieson Engineers, Ness Engineering and Stephen Johnston from David Adamson Surveyors.
The study concluded that with significant investment the building, owned by Ghufar Razaq, could
be brought back into use for locals to grow their own food under glass.
Transition Shetland, is confident the money can be raised. However, the organisation says the project will only get off the ground if enough people are interested in getting involved.
Chairman Pete Bevington said: “We’ve spent about two years now raising funds and commissioning this feasibility study from AB Associates.
“What they have discovered is that while we face a big challenge restoring this building, there are a lot of people out there who want to see it happen.
“We now have to make a decision whether to proceed and we need to know how many people are willing to get involved in bringing this tremendous asset back to life.
“We are very confident we can raise the funds to do this as long as we can negotiate a deal with the current owner.
“But the most crucial factor will be people getting involved. We would urge anyone with an interest in the glasshouse to come along on 26th March and find out more and hopefully sign up to getting involved.”
The public meeting will be held at 7pm on Wednesday 26th March at Tingwall Public Hall.
Ali Inkster
The only way this project should receive public money is if it will benefit the whole community and not just a few folk that will get a bit of space. To get up to 50 folk to agree on all aspects of whether or not to be organic what pesticides are or are not acceptable, etc etc. If there is to be public money spent on this then why not get cope involved then there will be one organisation working in one direction. if they were to grow fruit n veg for the local market and supply local shops then the whole community will benefit from a supply of locally grown produce, only the local shops though not tesco and the co op, this will give folk the incentive to vsit their local shops increasing trade and supporting the local community, It might even mean that the SIC would not need to be handing out grants to support the local shops.