Folk in Orkney are being asked to share their views to help shape the design of a proposed new coastal path project at Weyland Bay, Kirkwall with the aim of further linking communities and promoting active travel.

The project team are keen to develop ideas collaboratively with the local community, and the public engagement will be hosted online initially, with those interested invited to share their local knowledge and aspirations for the area of land between Carness Road and the coastline at Weyland Bay.

With no national pay agreement in place as yet, strike action is set to go ahead in a number of local authority areas, including Orkney, from Friday through to Monday 26-29 August.

The disruptions will most likely affect the county’s waste and recycling collection services on the Friday and Monday.

On Friday this could see disruptions to area 5 for recycling and areas 13 and 15 for waste and on Monday, Westray could be affected alongside Mainland areas 1 and 6 for refuse and area 9 for recycling.

There will be short periods of delay and road closures in central Kirkwall, Stromness and St Margarets Hope during the week starting Monday 29 August as the Council carries out safety tests on the fixings and anchors points for festive lighting.

Folk with an interest or connection to Egilsay are being invited to play a part in developing how the island’s heritage is shared more widely.

The Egilsay Community Association has received North Isles Landscape Partnsership Scheme funding (NILPS) to host “A Day in Egilsay” community event, which will include heritage talks, discussions, and a walk on Saturday 10 September.

Valerie Dawson, NILPS Project Officer, said: “We have allocated funding to the Egilsay Community Association to assist in the development of heritage displays and interpretation at the community centre. To kick that off they are hosting an event to get people together and start to gather ideas, stories and content for a website and some displays.

There’s been a new “pupil” at Papa Westray Community School for some time now – and Max the autonomous – or self-driving – vehicle has proven to be a star student!

While Max has been trained to carry out different tasks – pupils and staff have also been on an exciting new journey thanks to being part of the international pilot research project exploring the use of autonomous vehicles (AVs).

Head Teacher Tim Ross said: “We were fortunate to receive one of the three robots that came to Orkney as part of the trial. The main targets were to demonstrate the principle and viability of the technology. The children spent the year progressively learning how he worked, training him to do simple 'routes' and eventually trained him to drive to and from the local shop without assistance, resulting in the delivery of school lunch ingredients one day! It has been a great achievement.”