Shetland Islands Council voted on 30 June to back a draft strategy for up to four undersea tunnels connecting Shetland's Mainland with the islands of Yell, Unst, Whalsay and Bressay, at a total estimated cost of £1.5bn. Meeting in Lerwick, councillors approved exploring funding options for the two priority tunnels — a Mainland-to-Yell link and a Yell-to-Unst link — and sanctioned up to £200,000 from existing budgets to progress the project, including further development of financing options.
The draft strategy, formally titled the inter-island transport connectivity programme, describes the Yell and Unst tunnels as 'economically transformative', in part because a fixed link would help connect SaxaVord Spaceport on the northerly island of Unst. Council leader Emma Macdonald said that with the support of the Scottish and UK governments, tunnels could be operational in as little as eight years. Chief executive Maggie Sandison said the project was not going to be easy, but that pursuing a funding solution was 'the right thing to do' [Source: BBC News]. Bressay and Whalsay were put forward for continued investment in ferry services alongside a longer-term commitment to a fixed link.
Funding is expected to draw on a mixture of private investment, public subsidy and borrowing, with tolls earmarked to cover maintenance costs. Both the Scottish and UK governments have ruled out fully funding the project, with a toll-based model similar to those used in the Faroe Islands under active consideration. The council currently runs ferry services to nine islands, carrying around 750,000 passengers each year on 12 vessels at an annual cost of £23m.
On the contractor and consultant side, Strabag SE (STR.VI) is one of three international tunnelling firms appointed in December 2025 to review and evaluate a reference design for the Yell Sound tunnel link, alongside LNS of Norway and Bemo Tunnelling, part of the Czech Metrostav Group. Stantec (STN) and Danish consultancy Cowi were appointed in October 2025 to develop a viability study for the project and are the lead consultants on the fixed-link model being used as a test case for the wider outline business case. Cowi's timeline envisages three years of preliminary work followed by five years of construction. In May 2026, Cowi's Andy Sloan told the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee that Shetland tunnels are engineering-feasible and 'investable' pieces of infrastructure [Source: Shetland News].
The Faroe Islands, home to around 54,000 people compared with Shetland's population of approximately 23,000, have been building tunnels since the 1960s and now have more than 20, including four subsea links. The Faroese network includes a 7.1-mile tunnel connecting Streymoy to two sides of a fjord on Eysturoy via what is described as the world's only subsea roundabout. The Shetland project is not the only such initiative under consideration in Scotland's island communities: earlier this year the Western Isles council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, said it would consider building tunnels or bridges across the Sounds of Harris and Barra.
Sources: The Guardian, BBC News, Shetland Times, STV News, Shetland News, New Civil Engineer, Construction News, Ground Engineering