Travel Centre to reopen

The Kirkwall Travel Centre will reopen to the public on Friday afternoons from this week.  

The centre will now be staffed from 3:00pm to 5:00pm Monday to Thursday, and from 1:30pm to 5:00pm on a Friday.  

The post is initially being funded through the revenues generated from cruise ship visits to the county - with a review to take place at the end of the season.  

Following ongoing reports of anti-social behaviour in the facility – including tampering with electrical plug sockets – the Council took the difficult decision earlier this month to close the facility on a Friday afternoon whilst a solution was found.  

Outreach works by the local Youth Cafe will continue up to the end of this week in a bid to encourage young people congregating in the area to use this facility instead.  

Assemblies are also being held at Kirkwall Grammar School this week to engage with pupils about the impact their choices – positive and negative – can have on the wider community.  

Police patrols have also been increased in the Travel Centre area and a number of incidents are under investigation.  

Councillor David Dawson is Chair of the Council’s Development and Infrastructure Committee. He said; “The situation with the travel centre has been very unfortunate, but we were left with very little choice once it became apparent that some of the behaviour taking place was not only presenting a nuisance to other users – but also a genuine danger.  

“Whilst we understand that some young folk have gotten into the habit of using the Travel Centre as a social gathering space - and the value they place on this- it's not what the Travel Centre is there for, and the way in which some young folk were behaving whilst they were there unsupervised was putting genuine users off - a situation which couldn’t continue.

 “As with any big organisation we do our best work when we get our heads together and work as a team to pool our resources to solve an issue. Using the income we generate through cruise ship calls to fund someone to be at the travel centre during peak times to keep an eye on things is a great example of this.” 

Councillor Dawson also said that discussions were ongoing between departments at the Council on future funding of outreach work by the Youth Cafe, aimed at encouraging more young people to access the facilities there instead of using the Travel Centre as a gathering place.  

“The outreach work being carried out to encourage young folk to access the youth cafe or the free activities at Picky as an alternative is fantastic.   

“The closure of the facility for this brief period of time will hopefully have encouraged more young people will get into the habit of using these other facilities instead – and we’re working on ways to support our Youth Café and Picky colleagues on this.”