Polphail – abandoned village redevelopment announced

A sudden jump in last week’s site activity was explained when the detailed stats for the week arrived this morning, and identified the single cause as our Portavadie page, with more than four time the usual number of page views for the whole site being directed towards this single page on Tuesday, and almost the same on Wednesday. Then things returned to normal.

In Tuesday, June 23, the BBC carried a news item on Reporting Scotland, with a video from the village, reporting on an announcement by the owner that the derelict accommodation at Polphail was to be demolished, and construction of 270 houses on site would be completed by 2019.

The area has already seen a number of other deelopments and changes in recent years, although it would appear that all previous plans for development of the Polphail village area have failed to materialise.

Polphail was built as accommodation for construction workers, when Portavdie was chosen as the site for a construction yard for concrete oil platforms, but the demand the government of the time had hoped to cash in from the oil boom of the 1970s simply never materialised, and after creating what one report described as the largest and most expensive man-made hole in the world, it abandoned the site.

We’ve seen two reports on the hole – excavated to form the dry dock where the platforms would have been constructed – and one has to have a misprint, as each has a different cost figure, £4 million and £14 million. We’d really appreciate it if anyone could point us at a definitive figure or report, so that we could quote the correct figure with some confidence

The slipway for the Portavadie to Tarbert ferry has been moved from the area of the dry dock, and relocated just to the north – a modicication that has yet to be caught by some of the online mapping services, which still show the old road leading into the water there. The former dry dock is now a marina, which was completed and opened recently, and will be looking forward to the arrivial of the homes wich will eventually occupy the old accommodation area. The sheltered coastal area has also seen the creation of a fish farm.