Blog: Neil reflects on significance of new pier at Hatston

A few weeks ago I was pleasantly, and mildly, surprised to be asked to open the extension to Hatston Pier by Councillor Jim Foubister. I joked about whether my wife needed to buy a new hat and whether I needed to get my hair done. (See the photos for how pointless that would have been in my case!).

But the enormity of what I was being asked to do came home to roost in the intervening weeks when the arrangements were being discussed and the issue of the plaque came up. I hadn’t really thought that bit through. Suddenly the fact that my name was being carved in stone hit me. That is normally reserved for when we die, so to have it happen when alive is significant. These people are serious! And this is an important event. This is the completion of a significant investment by the community in their future and it is a moment that needs to be marked. Permanently.

But I really shouldn’t have been that surprised because that is how Orkney is. They really are serious about their future, just as they always seem to have been. Some 200 years ago the good burghers of Kirkwall wrote to the pre-eminent Engineer of the day Thomas Telford and asked him to design them a harbour. Their first. This he duly did and in 1811 it was opened. Before then the lack of a harbour meant that the maximum size of vessels was severely limited by what could be dragged up the beach or taken through narrow channels behind a sand bar. This in turn limited the scale of trade from the islands.

So a harbour for trade was seen as a good investment, public support garnered, and the contract duly signed for £4691 with one George Burn who had just finished Pultneytown at Wick. At the time trade was pretty general, but the coming of a harbour allowed one industry after another to flourish. Probably the most remarkable example was the egg industry which in 1878 was at such a peak that 178,000 dozen eggs were exported from the county. That is over 2 million eggs in a year!

I am sure Telford didn’t anticipate the egg industry, but here is an example of the effect of building infrastructure at the right time and place and allowing remarkable things to happen.

And that is what tends to happen here. As we stood on the Hatston Pier extension on Tuesday we could see that the existing pier, planned around 2000 and completed in

2003 to accommodate bigger ferries of the time was now being heavily used for an unplanned use. 2 generations of tidal turbines by Alstom were being prepared for installation next to the assembled crowd. No one believed that there would be such things as tidal turbines, so no one thought to build a pier for them.

But scroll backwards to about 3 years ago and the council’s Marine Services Department realised that there was indeed a new opportunity opening up. The servicing of the coming marine renewables industry.

Careful and systematic planning by officers and councillors led to decisions to refurbish the ex Navy pier on the island of Hoy, extend Hatston and build a new pier at Stromness. This 3 Ports Strategy has resulted in enormous change from some of the make-do-and-mend conditions that were endured when marine renewables first came to Orkney. But the need was identified and now Orkney boasts good facilities, including the longest deep water commercial pier in Scotland.

With several vessels along side the pier at the opening it showed something of the trade that is planned to be attracted to this new asset.

And of course there will be many other uses in addition to the renewables traffic already booked in. Cruise liners are queuing up to bring tourists to see the ancient sites and the oil industry planning to work in the new West of Shetland fields are already looking around.

So as the flag slipped off the plaque and the crowd dutifully clapped I felt a real lump in my throat at the great honour I was being paid by Orkney. The honour of marking their progress to a sustainable, prosperous future.