Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

It is said that about 3,000 jobs in Scotland have been saved after US firm CB&I completed a strategic acquisition of the holding company Petrofac Asset Solutions, which went into in administration last month. There is a widespread view that Petrofac never quite recovered from its losses of around £284 million from building the Shetland Gas Plant by the time it was completed in 2016.

This was the fourth year of volunteers preparing and delivering hot meals on Christmas Day. This year the meals were again prepared in the kitchen of the Sound Primary School by a team led by head cook Alison Beattie and assistant cook Brenda Moar.

Since its launch in 2017, over 350,000 Baby Boxes, including almost 1,500 in Shetland have been delivered to give every newborn the best possible start in life.

Making its first visit to Lerwick harbour, berthing at the Greenhead Base on arrival from Belfast, is the 69 metre cargo boat Arklow View, to collect scrap.

The coastguard has been quiet for incidents this month. However, on Christmas eve the Leirna was called out for an NHS ambulance patient transfer from Bressay.

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.

As usual over the Christmas and new year period, SIBC will be carrying news at all the regular scheduled times.