Police warn drivers to slow down after dealing with seven weekend accidents

Heavy snow caused a series of accidents over the weekend although with no major fresh falls overnight all schools have reopened today.

Seven car accidents were reported to the police, most of which according to Northern Constabulary were attributable to the wintery conditions.

An 18-year-old man was charged with careless driving after causing a road accident on the A970 at Quarff on Saturday, in which three vehicles were involved. A report is to be sent to the procurator fiscal.

On Sunday, the fire brigade was called to an incident involving two vehicles on the same road near Fladdabister to cut one man free. As a result the road was closed for approximately two hours. An ambulance also attended and three other people were taken to hospital for minor injuries but were released soon after.

A police spokesman said drivers should slow down and take extra care in the snow.

The coastguard was also affected by the weather, with Baltasound coastguard rescue team having to assist a BT engineer in getting to an aerial sited at Saxa Vord, which had been hit by technical problems.

While there the Baltasound team monitored the VHF radio system to alert any distress calls to the team in Lerwick.

Lighting strikes to cables and a pole mounted circuit breaker caused disruptions to electricity supplies on Saturday.

At around 2.20pm 320 properties in Mossbank were left without power, though the majority were back on after 20 minutes and the rest had their power supplies restored by 4.50pm.

There were disruptions to around 4,000 homes across the north of Shetland, Whalsay and Fetlar, when a pole mounted circuit breaker was hit by lightning just before 8pm. Scottish and Southern Energy Engineers had restored the power supply by 10pm.

Although open as normal over the weekend, Sumburgh Airport experienced delays in departures and arrivals mainly due to problems outwith Shetland.

This morning the first flight to Edinburgh was cancelled due to problems on the mainland, and there may be further disruptions due to backlogs at other airports.

NorthLink services were affected by strong winds with the northbound Hjaltland service leaving Aberdeen two hours late. The vessel did however arrive at Lerwick on time at 7.30am this morning.