accommodation barge in town center

[Scorrie]

Whose quality of life?

[Colin]

Whose quality of life?

Indeed.

 

also

 

How can a floating barge, or anything else for that matter, affect anyone's "quality of life"?

[Ghostrider]

Are they all still attached to piers this morning, was kinda breezy aff an on at times in the night.

[A@C]

Quality of life can be affected by bad smells or eyesores - like big ugly stuff in the wrong place. Some folk can get upset by industrial developments, others by stuff like salmon farms or windmills or barges?

[shetlandpeat]

Quality of life can be affected by bad smells or eyesores - like big ugly stuff in the wrong place. Some folk can get upset by industrial developments, others by stuff like salmon farms or windmills or barges?

Amenity. That is the technical word used in Planning.

 

The amenity can be changed by changes to the landscape, well being and environment.

[Scorrie]

Quality of life can be affected by bad smells or eyesores - like big ugly stuff in the wrong place. Some folk can get upset by industrial developments, others by stuff like salmon farms or windmills or barges?

A barge spoiling you idea of what should be there is not a 'quality of life' issue. 

[owre-weel]

 

Nice that LPA are generating income for our  town but can quality of life count for so little?

The floating hotels are not the best looking things in the town but they are temporary and after a while you drive past them without noticing they are there. The benifits to the local economy have to out way any short term visual appearance concerns.

[Colin]

Quality of life can be affected by bad smells or eyesores - like big ugly stuff in the wrong place. Some folk can get upset by industrial developments, others by stuff like salmon farms or windmills or barges?

 

Nimbyism?

[shetlandpeat]

Wind turbines are temporary, though longer. Yet there is a huge battle from such nimby activists throughout the country. It does come to something when they protest to stop a small company from gaining a benefit. Anyhow, do Town and Country Planning laws aquire themselves to ships?

Edited December 6, 2013 by shetlandpeat

[Ghostrider]

Wind turbines are temporary, though longer.

 

Everything is temporary, if you take the definition of the word to its logical conclusion. Fixture, or non-fixture might be better terms to debate over. Windmills as we have to put up with them in the here and now are fixtures, without much doubt.

 

 

Anyhow, do Town and Country Planning laws aquire themselves to ships?

 

"I see no ships"

 

Funnin aside.... I stand corrected if wrong, but I seem to think the SIC thought they were, when they told the guy at Voe he couldn't have his floating hut on a raft there no more.

 

Of course, the LPA are a greater power than the SIC, as the latter seem to be slowly learning (bloody expensively though), so such laws do not apply to them as they allegedly apply to mere mortals, and the undead like me.

Edited December 6, 2013 by Ghostrider

[shetlandpeat]

Do S.I.C. Officers act as agents for the Queens Estates? That could be the reason.

 

The barges are there for the benefit of the company that put them there. The resulting income to the islands has to be grasped. I agree turbines are longer in their temporary state, but the small low power ones being dismissed by planners we are told are not in keeping with the area, even though we live near two nuclear power stations and the distribution that comes from them. Placing small turbines amongst these 100-400 foot towers would be in keeping. The barges are in keeping. The harbour is a  device built or placed for floating objects, having a floating object in a place where it has been part of the design to have floating objects cannot be seen as out of place. Though, there still has to be a consideration to the disturbance to the existing residents, be it humans or other carbon based life forms. I remember the smell of the gut factory, the Sumburgh and Bressay horn, something that was part of the heart beat of the islands. It seems as there is a split on the issue of further sustainability, while that is there, continue as you are and embrace the black gold, which comes with barges.

[JustMe]

Actually I think the barges are there for the gas plant rather than for black gold but they bring money to the port authority at a quiet time of year and I am sure the residents spend something in the local shops.  And extra income for the bus companies.  And people who do not like the look of them can turn the other way.........unlike the proposed wind farm that will kind of be visible from the Kames no matter which way people look.

[crofter]

Do S.I.C. Officers act as agents for the Queens Estates?

 

No.  

 

They do however have power to licence certain developments under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010.

[shetlandpeat]

Thanks for that, though Just Me, I was not talking about farms. Though, on that subject, I am sure if you do not look at something then you can only see it in the minds eye if you have seen it before, however, the barge is there, the "farm" is not.

I suppose though, unlike the M.O.D., these will go without lasting impact on the environment, but unlike the M.O.D., will not leave anything that is as quite historical that is worth preserving. As for black gold/gas, it is all carbon, carbon is perceived to be black generally. Sadly, in what ever form it has come in, be gas, coal, oil or diamond, there has been death, fraud, greed and wars about it.

 

While the barges are there, they should be supported, I do not think the negative comments about those who may inhabit them a good thing for relations, show a little of the small mindedness of some folk.

[A@C]

Clearly it is naive to expect consensus on what constitutes an eyesore and how far an aesthetic appreciation of our surroundings should trump Mammon. Barges there must be and a measure of comfort taken in that their stay will be short term. But can we appeal, in the future, for more sensitivity about where they are "parked" ? LPA would most likely contend that options are limited within the harbour. In which case could we at best hope for a holistic awareness by LPA of their activities for the town?