Tourist centre closes for final time today as future of building remains unclear

The Lerwick tourist centre officially closes today (Monday) for the final time.

NorthLink warns passengers of disruption

Passengers can expect delays of up to two hours to arrivals on board both NorthLink ferries tomorrow (Sunday).

Adverse weather has forced the operator to warn customers of the longer sailings before arriving at the terminals in both Lerwick and Aberdeen.

Both the northbound and southbound journeys are believed to be affected by conditions, with a 90 per cent chance of rain and winds as high as 53 mph overnight.

The southbound Hjlatland will depart the town as scheduled at 7pm tonight, with the northbound Hrossey expected to leave the Granite City at 5pm.

Active schools celebrates 20th anniversary

Fun activity sessions will be organised next week to mark the 20th anniversary of the active schools programme in Shetland.

The council says staff and volunteers have worked with many local sports clubs, schools, parents and community groups in the last two decades to deliver sport and physical activity opportunities. 

These have included extra-curricular activities, school competitions and summer programmes, giving young people the chance to be active and to get involved.

Activities on offer next week are mainly aimed at primary-aged pupils, including some family sessions, and will vary across locations and by age groups. 

The range of activities will include badminton, hockey, netball, pickleball, table tennis, fencing, boccia and more. 

Information about these sessions is being sent out by schools, directly to parents and guardians.

Active schools manager Louise Jamieson, who also marks 20 years of working in active schools, said: “I’m proud of the impact that the active schools team has had in our local communities over the last 20 years, which is a significant milestone. 

“In that time, the team have introduced thousands of children to new activities and opportunities. 

“We’re looking forward to seeing plenty of folk at our fun activities next week to mark our special anniversary.”

Chairman of the education and families committee Davie Sandison added: “The active schools programme is hugely valued here in the Shetland community, and the large numbers of children benefitting from its various activities is testament to its success. 

“I’d like to congratulate and thank our active schools coordinators past and present for their dedication to our community, its young people and their health and wellbeing.”

Sniffer dogs seize £20,000 of heroin in a week

An eye-watering £20,000 of drugs has been seized by police in a matter of days, with Dogs Against Drugs central to the successful busts.

Between two operations, the sniffer dog charity has played a crucial role in the crackdown on illicit substances reaching the isles – including £18,000 of heroin yesterday (Thursday).

Police chief Chris Sewell hailed the dog handlers and their trusted canines as a “unique asset” on the frontline, keeping Shetland safe.

“It is essential, to reduce harm, that we do all that we can to disrupt this criminal activity and bring offenders to justice,” the area commander said.

“These significant drugs recoveries once again highlight the excellent partnership working between Police Scotland and the Dogs Against Drugs charity.”

Mr Sewell added that the busts this week had been down to good intelligence and “pro-active” policing.

On Tuesday the police and Dogs Against Drugs seized £1,300 of heroin.

Earlier this week, Mr Sewell told the community safety and resilience board that it was his intention to to target those involved in the supply of controlled drugs.

In this week’s Shetland Times

In today’s (Friday,  15th November) edition of The Shetland Times:

• Grin and bear it: NHS dental patients de-registered 

• “Whatever the fire didn’t get, the smoke did,” flat blaze couple tell The Shetland Times

• Fisherman attacked by “hissing” skate

•  Is PM Starmer a farmer harmer?

• Sounding Off: Tom Morton on where the SIC is going wrong

• SPORT: Interviews with Shetland Sports  Awards winners

Click here to get The Shetland Times delivered to your device every Friday morning.

Poor weather forces Friday ferry disruption

Ferries to and from Lerwick have been rescheduled tomorrow (Friday), in anticipation of rough weather.

The southbound service from Lerwick to Orkney and Aberdeen will leave at 3:30pm, two hours earlier than planned. It will arrive up to an hour late on the mainland.

The service up from Aberdeen, which was scheduled for 7pm, will now depart at 3pm.

That disruption will carry into the weekend, with Saturday’s ferry up arriving late, and the southbound departure to Aberdeen delayed two hours to 9pm.

Freight vessels have also have been rescheduled Friday and Saturday, NorthLink said.

WATCH: Skate attacking inflatable vessel off Muckle Roe 

A fisherman had to pull teeth out of his inflatable vessel after a skate bit his boat in six different places. 

Paul Hutchison had been fishing in his Avon SR4 RIB boat on Saturday when he came across what he initially believed was a startled seal.

“I had moved inshore to catch a drift going north, so I wasn’t on the fishing ground, so I wasn’t fishing, I was sat having a cup of tea on the boat,” he said.

“Something splashed right at the side of the boat and I thought it would be a seal that’s come up and got a fright. It’s quite common for seals to come up beside you, not realise your a person on a boat and get spooked.”

However, the “seal” came up multiple times and bumped the bottom of the boat – after the fourth time it surfaced, Mr Hutchison heard a hissing sound and realised it was not a seal.

“I saw this kind of brown mottled colour, it was quite bizarre and I thought ‘I don’t know what it is’ so I started up the engine to make a bit of noise and banged on the boat a couple of times, but it was still coming up.

“I thought ‘I can’t go into gear and move away now because it comes near the engine I’m going to hurt it'”.

After it surfaced again, he realised it was a skate biting the vessel.

“I turned round and saw it biting the tubes of the boat. It let go and dived down, so I put the boat into gear and moved as quickly as I could.”

On his way back to shore, Mr Hutchison said the boat was “rapidly deflating” and by the time he reached the marina half the boat was deflated.

“I’ve got a bag of teeth I had to pull out the boat, they’re quite small but they’re absolutely razor sharp and when I looked at my boat when I got out the water I realised the skate had punctured it in six different places.” 

The skate was believed to be the flapper skate – which is considered to be a critically endangered species. 

Although the skate attacked his boat, Mr Hutchison stressed he did not want anyone to “go after it”. 

Frankie’s win national award

Frankie’s Fish and Chips shop in Brae has won a national award.

They were named Best Chip Shop (North) at the Scottish Fish and Chip Awards atthe Double Tree by Hilton in Glasgow on Monday night.

The chippy was also highly recommended in the best dine-in restaurant and best fish supper (north) categories.

The team at Frankie’s celebrated their win on Facebook, saying: “Huge thank you to our amazing team and customers.”

The business was launched in 2008. It was taken over in 2020 by Corinna and Mark Hoseason.

Shetlanders join Rosebank protest in Edinburgh 

Members of climate activism group, Shetland Stop Rosebank, joined a national demonstration in Edinburgh today (Tuesday), marking the beginning of a legal challenge against Rosebank oil field .

Drilling at Rosebank - slated as the UK’s largest untapped oil field 130 kilometres north-west of Shetland - was initially consented by regulators last September. 

Since then, the Supreme Court ruled regulators must consider the environmental impact of projects holistically: in Rosebank’s case including not only drilling and extraction itself, but also the eventual combustion of the oil.

Environmental groups Greenpeace and Uplift have jointly asked the Court of Session in Edinburgh to revoke consent for Rosebank and the Jackdaw gas field near Aberdeen. That judicial review began today.

Sanjeev Prasad, 18, a medical student who grew up in Lerwick, attended a demonstration outside the court because he was worried about climate change.

“As a younger person, it’s my future,” Mr Prasad said.

“I’m from India, and I’ve seen how climate change can affects countries,” he added, from deadly flooding in Pakistan to Spain, more recently.

“Every time I go to Bangalore, which is the city I’m from, it’s hotter each year.”

Uplift and Greenpeace say the Rosebank oilfield will generate more CO2 than the 28 poorest countries in the world do each year.

Rosebank’s majority owners, Norway-based Equinor, say the development will support 2,000 jobs during its construction and more than 500 while it is operating.

Andrea Sanchez, a Bressay resident and climate activist, acknowledged the isles have a strong historical connection to oil and gas, but said it was important that locals also raised their voice in opposition.

“We are the closest to the oil field, and therefore it’s our voice that that matters the most,” Ms Sanchez said.

“There’s a lot of people here in Shetland that are in favour of oil and gas developments because we benefited a lot from from that in the past. However, there’s a few of us that are against [them] because we can see and we can understand the climate emergency.

“This doesn’t have implications just for Shetland or the marine area around Shetland, but it’s got implications for the whole world.”

Greens councillor Alex Armitage did not attend the protest, but said the legal challenge was an opportunity for the UK government to show “climate leadership globally,” just a few days before the start of COP29.

“Leaving Rosebank oil in the ground is Britain’s bargaining chip when we’re talking with other larger polluting countries,” Mr Armitage said. “They can see Britain as a climate hypocrisy while we continue to drill for oil.”