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Northern Lighthouse Board to Withdraw from Stromness Base

The Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses are to withdraw from their base at Stromness on Orkney by 31 March 2004. It is with considerable regret that the Commissioners have taken this decision especially in view of the Board’s long association with Orkney. The process will be managed in a way that respects and acknowledges the association between the Orkney communities and the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB), and will seek to ensure that the economic impact on Stromness of the decision is kept to a minimum.

Six jobs will be lost at the Base. However, there will be the offer of relocation for up to four of these posts, and two further people, recently recruited by the Board to work as Technicians will continue to be based in Orkney.

The NLB has agreed to work with local agencies to identify possible alternative uses for the base and pier that allow the best opportunities for continued employment at the site. The Commissioners have instructed the Board’s Chief Executive, James Taylor, to seek an alternative use for the base by the early summer, if possible.

The Commissioners took the decision at a meeting yesterday. James Taylor broke the news to the staff at Stromness this morning, saying “This is a sad but necessary step for the Board and its people.
We have had an operation here for one hundred years and our links with Orcadian seafarers go back far beyond that. But the nature of marine safety and navigation has changed dramatically in recent years. There are no longer any manned lighthouses to be supplied with stores, we have reduced maintenance on our new solar/electric lights, the maintenance work on buoys that Stromness did in the past needs to happen less frequently and our Stromness base requires very significant investment if we are to retain it and to make it fully fit for that purpose.”

The NLB first told its Stromness team that the future of the base was under review in August. The Board had found that an investment in upgrading the NLB base at Oban, coupled with the need to overhaul buoys less frequently, meant that the Oban operation could easily cope with all the work for Scottish and Isle of Man waters. Subsequently it became clear that an investment of about £600,000 would be needed to make the necessary health and safety improvements to allow Stromness to carry out buoy maintenance work effectively.

A consultation involving seafarers and other marine safety organisations elicited no objections to Stromness’ closure. When the Board decided to undertake an additional consultation on the impact of closure on the community, several respondents called for the base to be kept open, though a socio economic survey by Orkney Islands Council seemed to suggest the impact of closure on the area would not be as great as first considered.

“Orkney has been, and will remain, a key component of what we do,” said Mr Taylor. “The people working at our base – past and present – have played an enormously important part in allowing us to provide the aids to navigation which help make the UK waters one of the safest places in the world to operate. And, of course, we will continue to look to Orkney to provide the first class seafarers on whom we rely to man our two ships, and we have also demonstrated our ongoing commitment to Orkney by the recruitment of 2 locally-based Technicians.

“Our task now is to find a future use for the Stromness site which will allow it to continue to make an important contribution to the community,” Taylor continued. “To that end I am continuing a dialogue with Orkney Enterprise and with Orkney Islands Council to develop the process of passing the site from the Board to an appropriate successor.”

The decision to close the Stromness base has been taken against a background of change. Over the last 9 years, the Northern Lighthouse Board’s workforce has reduced from 386 to 210 staff. Similar changes are taking place in the other General Lighthouse Authorities in response to pressure from the shipping industry to reduce the cost of the service provided by the General Lighthouse Authorities, and so reduce the charges paid by shipping for that service.


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