A look back at events of 2002

July

• Orkney Islands Council launched into urgent talks with the Scottish Executive, amid growing concerns over the financing of the proposed livestock cassette system.
  
  It was discovered in July that NorthLink made a loss of £116,000 in their first year of existence before they started running their service between Orkney and Shetland and the Scottish mainland. The company reported pre-tax losses of £116,000 on ordinary activities for the period from October 20, 2000 to September 30, 2001.
• Councillors announced that they were to meet to discuss pumping £500,000 into the construction work at the multi-million pound pier at Hatston to ensure it was ready on time.
  
  Meanwhile, Councillors agreed to give their financial backing to
  construction of the livestock cassettes system. The full meeting of Orkney Islands Council agreed by nine votes to four to offer a commercial loan of £4.3 million to new company, Orkney Cassettes Services Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Orkney Auction Mart, who would own and operate the double-decker livestock system. Councillor Roderick McLeod was one of many to voice unease at the move, claiming he felt that the mart had a gun to the council¹s head.
• It was announced that an extra £2.18 million would be pumped into the new pier works at Hatston and Stromness to ensure that they were both ready on time for the NorthLink service in October bringing the total cost of the project to £23 million.
• The first batch of locally produced wine, made by the Orkney Wine Company, went on sale in Orkney shops.
• Work began on removing the remaining oil from the sunken battleship HMS Royal Oak. The project, led by the Ministry of Defence, aimed to complete the work started in Scapa Flow in the summer of 2001, known as "hot tapping."
• Orkney cannabis users were warned that they still face prosecution despite the downgrading of the drug from class B to class C.
• It was announced that NorthLink¹s new ferry Hamnavoe would probably be berthing onto a temporary floating pontoon, after Scrabster Harbour Trust admitted their £19 million new harbour would not be ready for NorthLink's take-over date of October 1.
• Stromness resident Gunnie Moberg announced this month that she was going to call on politicians to block plans to develop the new Marine Energy Test Centre at Billia Croo in Outertown because it would mean an access road being built right around her house.