Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

Police Scotland said that on Friday evening it had received a report that a possible ordnance device had been discovered at the rear of the Town Hall in Lerwick. A police cordon was put in place around the area and it was arranged for an explosive ordinance disposal team to head to Shetland to assess the device.

What in fact happened was that a box of First World War artifacts had been delivered to the Shetland Islands Council offices at the North Ness, and the box was later transferred to a shed behind the Lerwick Town Hall, to be included in an exhibition in November. When the box was examined, one of the contents was identified as a First Word War hand grenade, but there was no paperwork to indicate that it had been deactivated.

A coastguard helicopter based at Sumburgh was tasked to the 111 metre diving support vessel Seawell 70 nautical miles east-north-east of Unst. A casualty was flown to Aberdeen via Sumburgh.

It is being widely claimed that, while Rosebank, 85 nautical miles west-north-west of Unst, and Jackdaw, east of Aberdeen, almost certainly will get permission to go ahead with production, any further developments in the Atlantic Ocean or the North Sea that are given approval will only be a distraction in what, for many years, has been a declining UK offshore oil and gas industry.

Production at the Sullom Voe Terminal has fallen from 58 million tonnes of oil in 1984, exported by over 670 tankers, to 3 million tonnes last year, exported by 50 tankers. Figures for this year will be even lower.

The Shetland Islands Council is inviting people across Shetland to take part in a new survey about the issues that they consider would matter most to the future of the isles.

There are now 139 cruise ship arrivals listed for Lerwick harbour this year, down from the original 151 expected at the beginning of the year.