Pete Bevington

27 June, 2008

SHETLAND Islands Council is to spend £120,000 building a full scale model of the North Voe inlet on the isle of Whalsay to test if it is suitable for a new ferry terminal.

Councillors this week approved an extra £250,000 to be spent on developing plans to the island’s creaking ferry service, which has seen its main ferry Linga out of action for the past five days.

The rest of the money will be spent on drawing up detailed designs for a new ferry and three new ferry terminals to serve the island.

The SIC is currently working out how to provide long term connections to the islands of Whalsay, Bressay and between Yell and Unst.

The situation on Whalsay is particularly urgent with the existing terminals unable to cope with the modern vessels Linga and Hendra which serve the island.

Head of transport Michael Craigie said: “All the terminals on the Whalsay route were designed for vessels two generations ago, which were much smaller than the Linga and the Hendra.

“Now after several years of bigger vessels providing a more frequent service they are getting battered into submission. The Symbister terminal is in a very, very poor state of repair.”

Now the question remains whether to build a new terminal at Symbister, which would involve considerable dredging and moving the island’s marina, or at North Voe where there are environmental objections.

The council is to have a scale model of North Voe created at HR Wallingford, in Oxon, England, the hydrodynamics centre which built a similar model of Fair Isle’s north harbour several years ago.

Mr Craigie said the model would be “half the size of a badminton court” and show whether conditions would allow a terminal to operate in all sea conditions. Some locals say there is a confused sea state there,” he said.

The study should also assess how far out to sea a breakwater at North Voe would have to go, and how much that would cost in comparison to building at Symbister.

The study should be presented by the end of the year along with similar studies for a tunnel to Bressay and possibly a tunnel between Yell and Unst.

“The council will have to make some choices about which it wants to do first and what it wants to do with the others in the meantime,” Mr Craigie said.