Fair Isle: What £27m levelling up grant means for islanders

The Good Shepherd service from Shetland is slow, small and unreliable in poor weather

It's not every day that Scotland's smallest population scoops a large chunk of UK government funding.

But the Levelling Up grant for a new a new roll-on, roll-off service for Fair Isle is not just a ferry, it's a lifeline.

The £27m pledge means a long-awaited upgrade from the current vessel - the 37-year-old Good Shepherd.

Trips for visitors, shipping in food supplies and even taking a car to the island will become a lot easier.

The Good Shepherd service from Shetland, via the churning Sumburgh Roost tidal race, is slow, small and unreliable in poor weather.

It can carry 12 passengers, who have to climb down a ladder to reach the seating area, and one car - loaded aboard by crane.

Fiona Mitchell at Fair Isle Post Office says islanders can't wait for the upgrade

The new ferry will allow cars to drive on and off for the voyage, which currently takes two hours 40 minutes from Grutness or five hours from Lerwick.

Fiona Mitchell, who runs the island's post office, works as a fire fighter and teaches art at the primary school, says islanders "can't wait".

"It's fantastic news," Fiona says. "For someone like me that sails on the Good Shepherd ferry and always needs a sick bag, I'm hoping the new ferry is going to be a wee bit more comfortable than the last one.

"It moves Fair Isle forward with the infrastructure, the new ferry, and with the new bird observatory coming on - it cements what we are looking forward to and have been asking for.

"It really says Fair Isle is here to stay."

Fair Isle lies half way between Shetland and Orkney and has a population of about 60. It's just three miles long by half a mile wide.

The remote island is famous for its knitwear and birds, not forgetting its place in the shipping forecast.

A reliable 24-hour electricity supply was only established four years ago and its tiny primary school has just five pupils.

Eileen Thomson grew up on Fair Isle, where her father was a skipper of the Good Shepherd, and decided to move back from Edinburgh with her partner Guillermon Rotolo six years ago.

Their sons Luca, seven, and Ander, five, make up nearly half the primary school roll.

Eileen Thomson hopes having a new ferry will help encourage people to move to the island

"We've been fighting for a new boat for over 10 years, closer to 20 years," Eileen says.

"It's the oldest ferry in the fleet in Shetland. It crosses the roughest piece of water.

"In recent years its refit takes weeks and weeks every year. I think last year we had about two months without a ferry which had a huge impact on the isle.

"There are a lot of people who wouldn't consider moving here if they knew you were going to have to wait possibly a month here and a month there without any actual contact."

Fair Isle is one of the UK's most remote islands

Emma Macdonald, leader of Shetland Islands Council, agrees.

"It's no exaggeration to say that this funding from the UK government has saved Fair Isle as an inhabited island," she says.

"There would have been no other way for us to sustainably fund such a project.

"This is a truly great day for Fair Isle and for Shetland and we are grateful for the honest, open and productive dialogue we have had with the Scotland Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities throughout the process."

With a new bird observatory being built later this year and a new ferry on the horizon it's a fair windfall for Fair Isle.