Population drift to Lerwick

[shetlander]

I was interested to read the article in last weeks paper about the shift of folk from outlying areas of the isles to the town. What are folks views on this? Can and should the Council and other agencies attempt to stem the drift of folk to Lerwick? Or should it be left to social trends and economic forces to determine where folk want to stay?

[Fanman]

I think the council should build mare hooses in the toon.

There is obvoiusly a need for them.

[SoondBokie]

If you read the Shetland Times from a couple of weeks ago you will see that Hjaltland Housing Association are planning on building houses all over Shetland, not just in Lerwick.

Unfortunately the SIC don't have any money to build new houses anywhere.

[BigMouth]

If Lerwick becomes the centre of all things it will lead to further deprivation in the rural areas and higher house prices in the town. Employment prospects will lessen out of town and congestion will become a greater issue in town.

 

There can be quality of life here, but having to drive miles to work all year round is no fun and the costs of owning and running a car are particularly prohibitive here especially with the prevalance of short term contract positions becoming more commonplace.

 

There seems little point in paying out money for out of town initiatives and then concentrating every job in Lerwick. The council could help by siting some of its workers out of town.

[clanchief]

If you read the Shetland Times from a couple of weeks ago you will see that Hjaltland Housing Association are planning on building houses all over Shetland, not just in Lerwick.

Unfortunately the SIC don't have any money to build new houses anywhere.

 

 

The SIC recently agreed to spend up to £12million (?) of reserve fund money in a phased programme of housing over the next 4-5 years

[JustMe]

BigMouth wrote

There seems little point in paying out money for out of town initiatives and then concentrating every job in Lerwick. The council could help by siting some of its workers out of town.

 

Decentralising SIC staff keeps popping up as a way to stop depopulation of the rural areas. Indeed it also keeps popping up at Scottish executive level as well. And of course it is a brilliant idea.......except for one minor problem. It just will not work!. To be a bit less negative I suppose it would be possible to build a few rural SIC offices where a few staff who did not need to be their departments main office could work although I doubt if that would be cost effective.

 

Moving a whole department will not work as the majority of staff are unlikely to agree to the move. Even if there was an option to transfer all the staff who would not move into other jobs the department that was moved might well find that there were too few people in the new area suitable to fill the new jobs.

 

I fail to see what the problem is with expanding Lerwick.....lots of space around the marts and on the road to Dales Voe. The question for this council and perhaps the next council is how much land they want to open up for house building in Lerwick.

 

Within the context of social housing our council has a strange attitude. They demolish houses at Firth when there were people on the waiting list who would have been happy to move there, the allocations policy is so restrictive that people on the waiting list are unable to nominate all the areas they would like to live and certainly in the recent past homes have stayed empty for months if not years.

 

If there is an answer to the work / housing question for rural Shetland I think in the short term we need a better bus service to encourage people from rural areas to use a bus to get to work cutting down on pollution and congestion.

 

Longer term maybe it would be possible to set up new council departments in rural areas.....somewhere along the line Edinburgh or Brussels are bound to add to the council's workload. Meanwhile just keep commuting.

[Ghostrider]

Anything that could be realistically and viably done to stem a drift in to the centre of things, is going to have only minimal affect on actual numbers IMHO.

 

The vast majority of people living outwith Lerwick or other centres of population, in my experience do so for one or more of three broad reasons, they either love staying where they do stay and will persist in staying there at almost any cost, or they hate urban enviornments and would rather stay in a tent than in a town, or they stay where they do due to it's proximity to where and how they make their living.

 

Those who love where they stay and/or hate urbanisation are not really a factor as few of them will ever make the move, the most who have, are, or will, come from those who stayed elsewhere because that's where their means of income was. Drifting in to Lerwick has been an issue since Lerwick was founded, it was the natural resources of the countryside that attracted people to a place and to stay there, unfortunately Shetland's natural resources do not meaningfully extend beyond what soil and sea can provide, agriculture and fishing.

 

Once upon a time every beach in Shetland from which a boat could be safely kept when ashore and viably launched from, supported a nearby community of people. That largely came to an end over 100 years ago with the advent of the bigger boats, and steam powered boats, which could travel greater distances and more quickly, and could carry significantly more catch, making the sail and oar powered boats totally obsolete. The communities which gained directly from the fishing, as a result became considerably fewer in number, as the bigger boats required sheltered moorings or anchorage only afforded by a small number of locations. Those who lost out by this march of progress either had to find alternative employment where they were, which wasn't always possible, or move to where the fishing was conducted from, Lerwick and Scalloway being the premier locations. As the years have passed design and technological advnces have seen ever fewer boats carrying ever fewer men, operating from ever fewer ports fishing, in recent years regulation has multiplied that problem manyfold, until the Shetland fishing industry if barely a pale shadow of it's former self. In something over 100 years you have gone from having an industry which required in to the thousnds of people to stay in the countryside, to only really requiring a few dozen, most of whom would benefit from staying in or aroud Lerwick, Scalloway or Whalsay, and no meaningful alternative employment from the sea for the remainder.

 

Likeswise, in the same period you have gone from virtually everyone living in the countryside having enough land, that even if they had no other income, they could just about get enough from it that they had enough food, clothes and fuel to survive, albeit on the border thereof. A combination of ever increasing mechanisation, innovations in the fields of crop management, market forces, artifically created market conditions due to subsidy factors, and regulation have resulted in an agriculture industry which is in even worse shape than the fishing, on current margins only a very small number of people can hope to make a living from agriculture in Shetlnd today. Even in the better areas for a family of four to have what is considered a modest income today, you need at least the land equivalent to what supported ten families of four 100 years ago, and in most cases considerably more than that. The land today can only support less than 10% of the people it could 100 years ago, the rest have to move on, as there is nothing else to get in to.

 

Certainly things like airports, fish farms, Sullom, tourism and such keep a certain number in the countryside, but nothing like the numbers involved to hope to even stem an exodus. It has been proven over and over again that placing any kind of industry in the countryside that doesn't rely in some way on a resource and/or a significant market that is at that location, is ultimately doomed, you are simply putting it at a competitive disadvantage by having it have to pay additional freight to obtain it's raw materials and/or reach it's markets.

 

To keep population in the countryside, IMHO, for the majority of people, is down to there being a viable and sustainable means of making a living from a natural resource or a buying market. The soil and sea did that well for a very long time, but for now at least, they can't, and the Shetland countryside offers few other resources. Wind power hs been mooted, but even if it comes to fruition the jobs created long term are few, it would help in it's own small way, but it would take considerably more. We have a gross over supply of peat and rock, it is probably marketable, but mention it and the enviornmentalist sorts want your guts for garters after having you publically stoned at the Cross!!

 

To keep people in the countryside, the countryside has to give something to attract and hold them, and after dismissing that which is unviable and that which we are told should be unthinkable, the Shetland countryside has nothing left to give, not many people have a practical or useful reason to be there any longer.

[Claudias]

Not one of you has mentioned communication. If roads were extended to the outer isles,by means of bridges or tunnels,so that people could easily commute from end to end of the county I think that you would find that many would drift out of town,bact to the rural areas. People who can't commute tend to move into the centre so that they can access all the expensive facilities which are only viable in the centre.

[drew_peacock]

Not one of you has mentioned communication. If roads were extended to the outer isles,by means of bridges or tunnels,so that people could easily commute from end to end of the county I think that you would find that many would drift out of town,bact to the rural areas. People who can't commute tend to move into the centre so that they can access all the expensive facilities which are only viable in the centre.

 

Folk will always drift towards the more populated areas that is why they became more populated in the first place. A bridge, tunnel, ferry or the invent of molecular transportation will make no odds to the folk that don't want to be in a place that can't employ them it just means it won't take them so long to go back to visit.

[Claudias]

Not one of you has mentioned communication. If roads were extended to the outer isles,by means of bridges or tunnels,so that people could easily commute from end to end of the county I think that you would find that many would drift out of town,back to the rural areas. People who can't commute tend to move into the centre so that they can access all the expensive facilities which are only viable in the centre.

 

Folk will always drift towards the more populated areas that is why they became more populated in the first place. A bridge, tunnel, ferry or the invent of molecular transportation will make no odds to the folk that don't want to be in a place that can't employ them it just means it won't take them so long to go back to visit.

 

On the contrary. Unst has seen an influx of new residents since cheap, plentiful accomodation has become available. Millions of people wish to leave the crowded cities for an island in the sun. Even Lerwick residents would move out to the isles if they could commute to work in under an hour.

[Ghostrider]

Not one of you has mentioned communication. If roads were extended to the outer isles,by means of bridges or tunnels,so that people could easily commute from end to end of the county I think that you would find that many would drift out of town,back to the rural areas. People who can't commute tend to move into the centre so that they can access all the expensive facilities which are only viable in the centre.

 

Folk will always drift towards the more populated areas that is why they became more populated in the first place. A bridge, tunnel, ferry or the invent of molecular transportation will make no odds to the folk that don't want to be in a place that can't employ them it just means it won't take them so long to go back to visit.

 

On the contrary. Unst has seen an influx of new residents since cheap, plentiful accomodation has become available. Millions of people wish to leave the crowded cities for an island in the sun. Even Lerwick residents would move out to the isles if they could commute to work in under an hour.

 

You're going to be pushing your luck to get all that far south in under an hour with a car/bus, even with the best of roads and conditions, and keep within the posted limits are you not?

 

Besides, how many of the influx is likely to stay long term, is it not more a case a lot of those people have taken a house in Unst or wherever though Hobson's choice, there simply being virtually none to be had in the town, and what few are are completely out of the reach of their budget.

 

I'm not disputing some will make the move out of choice, but I'd question if numbers will ever be sufficent to make a meaningful difference. From my own perspective, I'm only 40-45 mins out, but I'd much rather sleep in a car or doss down in someone's garage in town, than I would pay £50+ per week for fuel and spend 7.5 hours of my week, every week staring out some other guys tail lights just to have a job there and stay where I am. Certainly the bus is cheaper, but the time wasted on travelling is considerably longer, plus the athmosphere during the trip if it doesn't drive you crazy will have you fit for tying, out of sheer boredom if nothing else.

[BigMouth]

Broadband was supposed to give many people the ability to work from home. I would have thought that this was such a good idea in Shetland.

 

There are many customer facing roles where an SIC member of staff (just to pick one of the large employers) can't do the job from home, as well as all of the peole that go out there and physically do something. Although of course there might be a scenario where an employee drives from Unst to Lerwick to deal with people that wish to speak about an SIC service that is being to provided to them, who have driven in from Northmavine, Yell, Fetlar or Unst!

 

I am sure that there are many paper-shuffling posts that could be done from home. Whilst I don't work for the SIC, most of what I do at work could be done from home.

 

Sadly few employers are forward thinking enough to accept staff might be working rather then skiving off at home, whereas they are actually likely to be more productive.

 

The cost of more and more office space and the costs and lost production in constantly moving staff from office to office blights the service that these organisations are supposed to be providing. All sorts of reasons are always given for moving staff, but I can't help feeling that it gives managers something to do rather than serve any really useful purpose. Add to this the costs of new furniture, because the old stuff won't fit / looks too shabby for a new office, and an investment in cheaper space out of town starts to look more attractive.

 

If people don't want to move leave them where they are. These organisations have good communication systems. Let them email and phone each other.

 

When the old woman laying in the next hospital bed to my partner said to her visitor that the shop in Sandness had closed down because the soothmoothers had bought all the houses she missed the point. Ignoring the xenophobia for a moment of course, the reason for the shop closing was because no-one was buying their food there. They well may have been driving into Lerwick to work for the SIC and then stocking up on the groceries at Somerfield. If the SIC office was in Walls they might have stocked up at the Walls shop or the Sandness shop, but the money would have stayed in the Wild West and a proportion of that in local pockets!

 

Perhaps the SIC & NHS Joint Futures initiative will thin out the back office staff needed for those jobs. I envisage a situation where SIC and NHS staff will share an office. I bet that it will be soon too!

[Claudias]

Not one of you has mentioned communication. If roads were extended to the outer isles,by means of bridges or tunnels,so that people could easily commute from end to end of the county I think that you would find that many would drift out of town,back to the rural areas. People who can't commute tend to move into the centre so that they can access all the expensive facilities which are only viable in the centre.

 

Folk will always drift towards the more populated areas that is why they became more populated in the first place. A bridge, tunnel, ferry or the invent of molecular transportation will make no odds to the folk that don't want to be in a place that can't employ them it just means it won't take them so long to go back to visit.

 

On the contrary. Unst has seen an influx of new residents since cheap, plentiful accomodation has become available. Millions of people wish to leave the crowded cities for an island in the sun. Even Lerwick residents would move out to the isles if they could commute to work in under an hour.

 

You're going to be pushing your luck to get all that far south in under an hour with a car/bus, even with the best of roads and conditions, and keep within the posted limits are you not?

 

Besides, how many of the influx is likely to stay long term, is it not more a case a lot of those people have taken a house in Unst or wherever though Hobson's choice, there simply being virtually none to be had in the town, and what few are are completely out of the reach of their budget.

 

I'm not disputing some will make the move out of choice, but I'd question if numbers will ever be sufficent to make a meaningful difference. From my own perspective, I'm only 40-45 mins out, but I'd much rather sleep in a car or doss down in someone's garage in town, than I would pay £50+ per week for fuel and spend 7.5 hours of my week, every week staring out some other guys tail lights just to have a job there and stay where I am. Certainly the bus is cheaper, but the time wasted on travelling is considerably longer, plus the athmosphere during the trip if it doesn't drive you crazy will have you fit for tying, out of sheer boredom if nothing else.

It is 51 miles from my house in Haraldswick to the Gilbert Bain Hospital. Tunnels or bridges would not add more than an extra ten miles and only short distances of that route are limited to less than 60mph so an hour,or there about is reasonable in decent weather.

You must have a poorly paid job Ghostrider if you would not pay fifty pounds per week to keep it. People South commute two or more hours each way,by car or rail,because they can't afford property in the area where they work. The salaries they draw makes the effort worthwhile. And. You would follow few tail lights on a trip from Unst to town.

I don't have any solid facts about the financial situation of the newcomers here but I suspect that a fair number have sold expensive properties South and are well in pocket after buying a house here.

[Ghostrider]

[You must have a poorly paid job Ghostrider if you would not pay fifty pounds per week to keep it.

 

If I did work, or were considering working in Lerwick, I'd see far more sense in putting that £50/week in to some sort of bricks and mortar in the town, even if it were just a lock-up garage, rather than holding a match to it for 50 miles every day. At least I'd be retaining that funds to recoup later. Besides, what price retaining whatever little sanity I may still be holding on to, commuting exactly the same 50 miles per day every day is a fast track production line to losing your mind in my book.

 

I don't have any solid facts about the financial situation of the newcomers here but I suspect that a fair number have sold expensive properties South and are well in pocket after buying a house here.

 

I have no doubt, and I'm sure we've all had those sorts in our respective neighbourhoods many times over the last 30 years, but they don't seem to stay permanently any better than those who are forced through lack of choice to move to a given neighbourhood. Certainly those who choose to move somewhere, rather than are forced to move somewhere, tend to be slightly longer term, but very, very few ever stay long enough to be considered permanent. I hope you're right, that most who have moved, and will move in the future, to Unst and anywhere else that hs seen significant depopulation, do become permanent residents, it's just about the only way a lot of the islands and smaller townships have of surviving. However, I cannot but help see the Papa Stour model of the last 40 years, which has been repeated on a smaller scale for a shorter period in Foula, becoming superimposed upon other islands and remoter townships. That, people of all walks of life are attracted to move there, apparently by the fantasy and/or the romanticism of the concept, rather than the reality of it, and in a relatively short period of time that reality has killed the fantasy and romanticism stone dead, and they move on.

 

How many non-indiginous Papa Stour people have moved in to the isle in the last 40 years? How many of them remain resident there today, and of those who are, how long have they been there? I rest my case. Certainly a few have remained in Shetland as what could be called permanent residents, which has been good for Shetland as a whole, but it has contributed only minimally to Papa, it's pretty much in the same position as it was 40 years ago, in that it has a small and declining permanent population. All that it has gained is to be a transit camp, mostly for itinerants, which shows an apparently healthier population number at any one given time, and it no doubt cumulatively contributes somewhat to the viability of the isle over time, but it is no solution. As far as the underlying trend goes, Papa's ass is still in the same sling as it was in in the 60's.

[Pooks]

I can't help but think that with the current councils method of thinking that should they suddenly incorporate 'home-working' into their plan for the future it would be a shambles.

 

I can see it now. "So you want to work from home?", "It'll take 1 to 2 years to complete the Health & Safety work followed by a Risk Assessment. Should that be successful then you will need to fill out form B248a required by our insurers incase you die on the job. Following that you will need to fill out form X198z for our lawyers." "Should you not have a successful Risk Assessment then you will be put on a waiting list of 1500 staff at which point it is advisable to apply for the new 'Work At Home For Outer Operations Liason (WAH FOOL)' grant. This should entitle you to a moderate sized extension for an office which will be suitable for fulfilling the job requisites. This is, of course, dependant on planning permission which could encounter a delay due to the new Planning Board having recently moved to the new 'Working from Home (WAH)' scheme which has resulted in a technical glitch which has left us with no Planning Committee."