Building Community Resilience
Purpose of Engagement
Five of Shetland’s islands are recognised as Shetland’s islands with small populations. These are Fair Isle, Fetlar, Foula, Skerries and Papa Stour. Each is understood to have its own unique needs, challenges, and strengths, and recognising this can help in supporting their residents.
In 2023, the island communities and Shetland Partnership Network approved Shetland’s Second Locality Plan for the islands. One of the main issues that the plan highlighted was a lack of emergency resilience planning. In spring 2024, it was decided that the Shetland Partnership Management and Leadership team (MLT) would work with each island community to create resilience plans, with support from Shetland Islands Council’s Community and Development Officers.
What was the desired outcome?
That the emergency services and MLT would develop a better understanding of the how each island functions, while strengthening relationships and gaining the trust of the residents. The plan was to also provide islanders with some basic preventative and responsive training and guidance and put some safety equipment into buildings. This includes fitting fire alarms into homes and giving guidance on what to do to prevent and respond to emergencies. The hope was this would enable the residents to both prevent incidents and be better prepared for emergencies, without endangering themselves in the process. Specialist advice was also provided to business owners during the visits to ensure compliance and wider safety in the community.
What was already known?
The islands do not have the same emergency response times as mainland Shetland. If there was a fire, attack or serious medical emergency, responders would need to travel by boat or helicopter to attend to the issue. This can take a significant amount of time, especially if the weather is poor and can result in people being left in life threating situations for extended periods. Although this is known, the island residents did not have any specific guidance or instructions on how they should deal with an emergency. Islanders also lacked confidence that the services understood how to respond to emergencies on the islands. Concerns about both had been voiced previously by residents.