The area lost its two main employers, the Shetland Smokehouse, owned by Cluny Fish, and the Scottish Sea Farm salmon processing plant at Sand, last year.

While most Scottish Sea Farms employees kept their jobs and relocated to the company's new plant in Scalloway, 17 jobs were lost at the Shetland Smokehouse between August 2006 and May this year. Since June adverts to gain interest from other operators to take on the Shetland Islands Council owned Smokehouse building have so far 'drawn a blank'.

On Monday night, councillors and officials travelled to Skeld for a public meeting which was attended by around 30 locals. Ideas to create a co-operatively owned heritage centre as well as from

community regeneration schemes like Initiative at the Edge have been banded around, but will now being discussed in more detail on 20 September. Relevant council and HIE Shetland officials will be present to discuss options to create new employment in the area.

Westside councillor Gary Robinson said: 'The meeting was generally very positive. The community are keen to move forward and see the Smokehouse used.

'We are going to get all the agencies together for a community day. There have been a lot of jobs lost in the Sandsting area. I think ideally we would be looking for something that would bring the number of jobs back.'

Former Smokehouse owner and local resident Dave Hammond said the meeting was very open and frank with lots of views and ideas aired. He added that he thought the community day 'was exactly the right outcome' of the meeting and expressed his hope that proposals would go beyond finding a use for the former Smokehouse plant with ideas for regeneration of the wider area.

www.fishupdate.com is published by Special Publications. Special Publications also publish Fish Farmer, the Fish Industry Yearbook, the Scottish Seafood Processors Federation Diary, the Fish Farmer Handbook and a range of wallplanners.

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