The harsh winter weather seems to have done little harm to shops in Lerwick, with most proprietors stating they had one of their busiest periods in the run up to Christmas.

Two new wind turbines could soon appear above Cunningsburgh if the latest in a growing list of plans for renewable energy projects in the isles is given the go-ahead.

The government’s proposal to shut either Shetland’s or Stornoway’s coastguard station is “fundamentally flawed” and underestimates the length of Scotland’s coastline by thousands of miles, according to isles MSP Tavish Scott.

Six Shetland fishing boats went out after Christmas to catch fish for the first market of the New Year, with the bumper prices this involves.

The Shetland senior football team will not be going to the 2011 NatWest Island Games, it has been confirmed.

Newborn Holly Hunter just missed the Hogmanay celebrations. The first baby to be born at Lerwick’s Gilbert Bain Hospital in 2010 came into the world at 1.35am on Saturday 2nd January, a daughter to Alison Hunter and Bobby Gray of Burra.

Anger over the council’s antics reach­ed boiling-point when SIC chief executive David Clark walked away from his job after less than nine months with a £250,000 pay-off. Councillors had agreed to offer the six-figure sum after meeting in private at the Town Hall, although they did not take a vote. It would later transpire that £285,000 was closer to the mark.

The council went into a tail-spin and financial watchdog Audit Scotland promised close scrutiny as it began an investigation into the SIC.

A cloud hung over Shetland in April. But this was no metaphorical cloud conjured up to convey the usual dark moods emanating from the Town Hall. This was the cloud of ash erupting from the Eyjaf­jallajokull volcano in Iceland – or, to get round the tongue-twisting search for accu­rate pronunciation, the “Icelandic ash-cloud”.

There was growing anticipation for a showdown at the Town Hall when the Accounts Commission ordered a public hearing be held into the SIC.