News / SIC impressed by ‘world-class’ country
A SHETLAND Islands Council delegation has just arrived back from an eye-opening “state visit” to neighbouring Faroe.
Speaking on his return to Lerwick Town Hall, council convener Malcolm Bell said he was deeply impressed by the way the Faroese were running their own affairs.
During the three-day visit to the North Atlantic island group, Bell was accompanied by SIC leader Gary Robinson and chief executive Mark Boden.
Faroe is a virtually independent group of islands with wide-ranging tax raising powers, with Denmark only looking after currency matters, foreign affairs and defence, while Shetland is one of 32 Scottish local authorities with no extra powers.
Bell said he was impressed by the way the Faroese had found local solutions to most local problems – usually using cutting-edge technology.
“We are very much at the end of the line for everything, while Faroe is very much in the centre of their own destiny,” he conceded.
“We have come back very, very impressed by their ability to do things.
“They are much more remote than we are, much more detached from the ‘mainland’ connection, and therefore have to find their own solutions, but they have the levers to do so.”
Bell highlighted the island’s world-class mobile and broadband communication systems, its airport fitted with the latest instrument landing technology and its outstanding transport network.
He said: “Their motto is ‘world-class everything’. Their airline had only one weather delay this year, and that was due to wind and not visibility.
“Their new aircrafts and the new landing equipment have transformed air travel, which means they can now go to the airport, catch the morning flight to Copenhagen knowing that they are going to get there, and also knowing that they will get back at night again.”
However, he pointed out that the Faroese tunnel system didn’t come cheap – using the tunnel to Vagar airport costs £10 one way – and added that better transport links to the outer isles had not stopped people’s desire to move to the capital.
“It gave us a glimpse of what is possible,” he said, “we saw things that could possibly be achieved, but we also realise what we can’t achieve because we simply don’t have the freedom to control our own destiny in the way the Faroese do.
“The islands are much bigger than Shetland, about double our size, and that makes them more viable.
But it certainly opened your eyes as to what could be possible,” he said.
During their packed programme they had meetings with Prime Minister Aksel Johannesen, foreign and trade minister Poul Michelsen, Faroese Telecom chief executive Jan Ziskasen, and the speaker of the Faroese parliament, the Logting, Páll á Reynatúgvu.
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