The Shetland Islands Council (SIC) has taken a decisive step forward in its ambition to improve inter-island connectivity by appointing three major international tunnelling and civil-engineering firms to assess the feasibility of subsea tunnels. The appointment marks the transition of the fixed-link project into a rigorous modelling and feasibility phase.

The firms chosen

• LNS — headquartered in northern Norway, LNS brings extensive experience in infrastructure and tunnelling projects across challenging geographies including Norway, Greenland, Hong Kong, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
• BEMO Tunnelling — part of the wider Metrostav Group, BEMO has built a reputation over 50 years delivering a broad range of tunnels and underground civil-engineering works across Europe.
• STRABAG — one of Europe’s largest construction groups, with a UK division already involved in tunnelling projects; STRABAG’s global scale and broad operations across more than 50 countries makes them a formidable player for a project of this ambition.

Why now — and why Shetland

Earlier this year the SIC agreed funding to develop a so-called Fixed Link Model (FLM). The modelling effort aims to explore — in technical, commercial and socio-economic terms — whether subsea tunnels connecting Shetland’s islands are viable.

As part of that FLM work, the crossing at Yell Sound has been chosen as the “test case.” The choice reflects Yell Sound’s suitability for probing a wide range of variables likely to be relevant across other island-link proposals.

What comes next — the scope of the work

Over the coming months, each of the three contractors will carry out site visits, review and evaluate the reference design, and feed their professional assessments into the broader FLM study. The SIC aims to use their findings to gauge:

• Contractor appetite — whether these firms (or others in the industry) would be willing to commit to large-scale fixed-link tunnelling projects in Shetland.
• Engineering feasibility, construction challenges, cost estimates, and schedule implications specific to Shetland conditions (subsea geology, weather, logistics, etc.).
• Potential financial structures, including what forms of external funding or public support might be realistic, given the likely scale of investment.

The firms’ conclusions will feed into the wider Inter‑island Transport Connectivity Outline Business Case (IITC OBC). That business case is expected to be submitted to councillors in summer 2026, at which point preferred options for each of the eight island-route proposals under consideration will be selected.

A potentially transformative moment

According to the chair of the Council’s Environment and Transport Committee, this move could represent “the most significant project the Council has undertaken in its 50-year history.”

While selecting Yell Sound as a test case does not guarantee it will be the first route constructed, it offers the widest range of technical and logistical variables — providing a robust baseline for modelling what fixed links across Shetland could look like.

For the three firms now onboard — LNS, BEMO Tunnelling and STRABAG — the assignment offers a rare opportunity to pioneer subsea fixed-link infrastructure in a unique environment: remote islands, challenging geology and extreme weather. Their findings could reshape how residents and visitors traverse the Shetland archipelago for decades to come.

What to watch next

• Over the next months: site visits, detailed evaluation and reporting from the three firms.
• Summer 2026: decision point — when the SIC will consider the full Outline Business Case and select preferred routes.
• Longer-term: whether subsea tunnels move from feasibility to funding, planning and eventually construction — potentially redefining transport across the Shetland islands.

This marks a significant milestone in what many hope could be the beginning of a new era of inter-island connectivity for Shetland. To follow updates visit the tunnelbuilder archives and sign up for the tunnelling newsletter. 50/25.