Viking chief admits mistakes made and slip should have been reported

Viking windfarm stakeholder manager Aaron Priest has admitted a peat slip at their Mid Kames site earlier this month “should have been reported more quickly”.

A video of the incident, which took place at around 7pm on Monday, 4th July, circulated locally before being reported by The Shetland Times last Thursday.

SSE Renewables admitted the video had been taken more than a week earlier.

But neither Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) or the council’s planning department had been made aware of the incident by Viking before the story was published.

Mr Priest told Tuesday’s Viking community liaison group meeting they should have reported the incident themselves – but said their first priority was to “stabilise the site” quickly.

He said the slippage, which went 72 metres down the hill, was caused by aggregate in a cable trench which should have been “excavated and founded”.

“Everyone there has been fully briefed on the causes and what is expected of everybody to do their job,” he added.

Tingwall community councillor Neil Leask raised concerns about “communication problems” which had seemingly lead to the incident, and said it was “obviously worrying”.

Mr Priest admitted there had been a “communication problem on a short section”, but he said he was confident this was “an isolated incident”.