Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

So this is Christmas and happy Christmas from us at SIBC. As usual over the Christmas and new year period, SIBC will be carrying news at all the regular scheduled times.

It is another year that there has been no Christmas tree at the Lerwick Town Hall.

Offshore Energies UK has said that around 10,000 offshore oil and gas workers are spending today, and the rest of the Christmas and New Year holiday, on platforms, floating production storage and offloading vessels, and platforms, and on offshore standby safety vessels.

Latest figures show that Shetland is well below the Scottish average as a percentage of the population for the number of people who are homeless, with Christmas a time for additional concern for the homeless.

In the Lerwick Town Centre’s Christmas window competition Jamieson’s Knitwear has been presented with the trophy, with Blyde Welcome in second place and Avril Thomson Smith in third.

Five local shoppers have been rewarded for shopping local with the Spend at da Street loyalty campaign.

Although there are no more Santa flights on Christmas eve by the coastguard helicopter based at Sumburgh, last year being the last time, the Lerwick lifeboat has again undertaken its annual GPS exercise south of Lerwick, from off Trebister Ness to off Fladdabister.