Campaigners in Shetland have welcomed a council decision to push ahead with a £5.6 million purpose-built new centre for adults with learning difficulties.
Day care services currently provided at the Eric Gray Centre and the council’s Gressy Loan premises, both in Lerwick, will instead be delivered from a new “hub” built on the former hockey pitch at Seafield, in the south of the town.
Members of the local authority’s social services committee yesterday unanimously backed chairman Cecil Smith’s motion to push ahead with a new building rather than refurbish the existing premises.
The project has been beset with delays in the past five years but with growing demand for the service the case for a new centre to bolster the quality of day care had been made.
Mr Smith acknowledged that funding would be “difficult and challenging, and will require close scrutiny”.
He said he intended to set a “rigorous timescale”, and hoped that construction work can begin next summer.
More than a dozen campaigners were present at Lerwick Town Hall to witness the decision being taken.
John Hunter, who has a daughter who will use the Eric Gray centre in a couple of years, said afterwards that he felt “reassured” and “very positive” that the project was back on track.
“Nobody there seemed to be against it,” he said. “There were one or two queries on where the money comes from, but everybody seemed to be wanting it to happen.”
The capital cost of the new building is forecast at £5.65 million, with a further £250,000 to demolish the surplus properties.