Dales Lees road closure extended into November

THE A968 road at Dales Lees is to remain closed until at least Friday 7 November, Shetland Islands Council has confirmed.

The road had initially been due to reopen this Friday, but the council said last week that had been pushed back to 31 October.

In a further update today (Wednesday), the SIC said EMN Plant had informed them that the works at Dales Lees were now due to be completed another week later.

The road connects traffic from Voe through to Firth/Mossbank and the Toft ferry terminal, which links to Yell and subsequently to Unst.

Yell Community Council, posting on social media on Tuesday night, said it had been told by SSEN Distribution that the road closure was due to “unanticipated SIC tar plant outages”.

It said staff at the tar plant had worked throughout the weekend to help with the efforts to re-open the road as soon as possible.

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The A968 road was closed in early July to allow SSEN to lay cabling as part of its North Mainland reinforcement project.

SSEN previously said the road at Dales Lees was too narrow to allow for cable laying work to be carried out while traffic was still flowing.

The company will be laying two high voltage underground cables to connect Sullom Voe Terminal to the local/national grid.

The project will also secure the power supply to households in the North Mainland and the North Isles once Sullom Voe Terminal’s own power station has been switched off.