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With all due respect, as someone with very poor mobility, I can tell you that exhausting oneself trying to cover the vast distance inside the store on smooth, level shiny floors was pushing the limits of my endurance. Having to cope with even a slight incline - trying to stop the trolley running away from/with you and keep your feet long enough to reach the pensioners/disabled Minibus waiting at the foot of the ramp just about ended me. If the west-facing door was closed and you had to negotiate the camber of the pavement from the east side door round to the disabled parking spaces... For those with breathing difficulties and more painful conditions it must be even worse. And having to do that on a day of lashing wind and rain or when there's ice and snow on the ground, just to get your weekly messages... The weekly Shoppers Bus - you only get 45 mins total to get in, get the messages, queue for a till, and get back to the bus. The supermarket wouldn't have enough staff to assist everyone within the time. When I was able to do my shopping myself, it was stressful enough as it was trying to get it done and back out to the waiting bus in the time, without having to worry about struggling another mile. {well it would seem like it by that point} It's only a few short times in a week there's a shoppers bus for us disabled / elderly folk. None on busy saturdays. Allow folk some peerie bit of independence, please.

Yet another full emergency declared at Sumburgh Airport yesterday, this CHC S92A just after landing :- Emergency G-WNSV IMG_8179 by Ronnie Robertson, on Flickr

I remember reading in The Shetland Times that the Ports and Harbours had saved over a million £'s in one financial year thank to "Maintenance slippage", a fancy term for not doing the work they had planned to do. I'm sure it would be clear to most people that "maintenance slippage" is never a saving, only the delay of a cost which will only increase.

Was there about an hour, didna see onybody get flatched in that time !

Maybe someen been listening ! Today :- Shopping Trip _MG_6367 by Ronnie Robertson, on Flickr

The issue of landing dues has been dreamed up by the council to divert attention from their incompetence. They built the Fetler pier on an island with no boats with no hope of ever getting any landing dues . After the new Yell ferry pier was built they simply gave up maintaining the old pier. They have demonstrated once again that they are utterly incapable of fulfilling their duties as a port authority. And now its come home to roost. AGAIN !

I don't pretend to know the "in's and outs" of this but, it would appear to me that if the SIC had some proper mechanism for collecting dues and, if the scallop fishermen had been a little more honest(?) in declaring their landings then, they (the fishermen) might have had a much stronger case against closure of the pier. As others have pointed out; The SIC has failed miserably on several high profile projects whilst, at the same time, failed to maintain some of it's "core" facilities. I can only imagine that someone, somewhere has taken their eye off the ball (or never had it on the ball in the first place). No problem though. They won't get the sack for it.!! After all, the people concerned are not "business people" and don't have a clue when it comes to running a business. They just exist to suck up public money for little or no return, issue "dictats" whenever they feel it appropriate to do so and, all this at no risk of repercussions to themselves.