Staff and service users at St Colms are appealing for the community to help protect their newly recovered polytunnel after it was deliberately damaged a few weekends ago.

Vital council services in Orkney can only be protected from significant cuts this year by the Council taking more money from its reserves - and by a 10% increase in Council tax.

When we set our budget we look at four key things – how much do we need to spend on services this year, how much are we getting from the Scottish Government and from non-domestic rates to do that, and then how much do we need to take from our reserves and how much do we need to ask local folk to contribute to services through Council Tax in order to make up any shortfall.

The multi-agency Orkney Local Emergency Co-ordinating Group (OLECG) met this morning to discuss the ongoing power outage in Stronsay

Public meetings are due to be held across Orkney in the coming months to fill vacant seats on local community councils.