Balfour Cottages

Balfour Cottages was acquired by SDT in February 2023 after we were approached by the owner to see if the trust would like to purchase it. We did some quick consultation with the membership and the overwhelming majority were in favour of SDT purchasing and renovating to create new homes.

Next step was creating a set of plans, the first set we had drawn up were keeping the original building, adding extensions on to the back and having the garage as a granny flat for a carer to use. This option was going to mean extensive renovation to the existing property to bring it up to rentable standards with new roof, new windows, new insulation, new floor, removal of the chimney breast walls, restructuring of most of the building. So at this point we went back to the architect and asked them to redraw the exact footprint but with new kit sections – this gained us a lot of square meters of floor space and meant we could claim vat, reducing the costs by 20% on a new-build compared to a renovation. So we went back to the drawing board and re-drew plans based on the idea of knocking it down and rebuilding with a modern twist on the old house, keeping the long white building with the low profile roof and chimney breasts, but with all the modern things that makes a house warm and efficient.

We then went back to the community with both drawings and had 2 open days at the Cottages to give everyone a chance to look around and make their own minds up. Most people came in to the cottages with a romanticised idea of it, but when the reality of the unconventional layout, the lack of space, the damp and the extent of the renovation required became clear, the overwhelming majority backed the idea of re-building, as long as the new building was in keeping with the old one!

After the vote, the next step was to go to planning, this stage took an extraordinary amount of time as it was initially turned down and went to appeal. After 14 months and a special meeting of the council and planning, planning permission was finally granted and building warrant was applied for. The project then went out to tender and 3 tenders were received, all from mainland Orkney.

Funding was applied for and £700,000 was rewarded from Rural and Islands Housing Fund and £200,000 from OIC, the remainder will be funded through income generated from the wind turbine, estimated to be around £200,000

We hope that works will begin in October/early November, but this is dependent on the building warrant being awarded in that timescale. This page will be used to update as progress is made on the project.

The aim of the project is 4 full accessible 2 bedroom properties – 1 may be kept for temporary accommodation for overnight carers or keyworkers, this will depend on need at the time