Shetland Islands Broadcasting Company

The NATO-led naval Exercise Strike Warrior 2026 is now over but military aircraft are still being seen around Shetland, although not as much as the 1950s into the 1960s, when a range of RAF and Royal Navy aircraft were seen regularly.

A report by the UK government’s Scottish Affairs committee has concluded that Scotland’s island communities face long-standing transport connectivity challenges, driven primarily by their reliance on ageing and increasingly unreliable ferry networks.

Representatives of the Norwegian fishing industry have defended operations in UK waters following criticism that, in August, the Norwegian fishing boat Havstrand had landed 787 tonnes of saith in Ålesund after a single fishing trip around Shetland.

There has been comment from the Shetland Islands Council to the Scottish Liberal Democrats freedom of information request, which asked every local authority in Scotland how many violent incidents had been reported in primary schools and in secondary schools in the academic year 2025 to 2026.

The Shetland Islands Council’s director of education and children’s services, Samantha Flaws, said that “any incident involving aggression or violence was taken seriously and was responded to appropriately by schools”. [LDRS]

Sir Phil Redmond, creator of the TV series Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks, and the chair of the independent expert advisory panel for UK Town of Culture 2028, will be visiting Lerwick a week on Tuesday.

A briefing note to members of the Shetland Islands Council has highlighted how the increased Scottish government funding for operating inter-island ferries has not provided a “direct financial windfall”, given the rising costs elsewhere. [LDRS]