Elections to Shetland Islands Council were held on 4 May 2017 on the same day as the other Scottish local government

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operate ...

. The election was the third using seven

wards Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a priso ...

created as a result of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, each ward electing three or four Councillors using the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

system form of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

, with 22 Councillors elected. With the Shetland South ward going uncontested, the SNP elected its first councillor in Shetland. Several members of the pro-Shetland Autonomy Wir Shetland group stood in the election; Ian Tinkler in Shetland West, and Alec Priest and Duncan Simpson in North Isles. Former Wir Shetland member Ryan Thomson also stood in North Isles. Whilst having left the group, it was claimed by the Wir Shetland Chairman that Thomson still supported the group's core aims. Other candidates with political positions of note included socialist Ian Scott and former Yes Scotland and Scottish Leave Left campaigner Brian Nugent in central ward. Nugent is an SNP member and claimed to be standing as an independent solely due to having applied too late to use the SNP party name in the election. Two

paper candidates In a representative democracy, a paper candidate (also known as a no-hope candidate) is a candidate who stands for a political party in an electoral division where the party in question enjoys only low levels of support. Although the candidate ...

for the Conservatives also stood.

Election results

Note: "Votes" are the first preference votes. The net gain/loss and percentage changes relate to the result of the previous Scottish local elections on 3 May 2012. This may differ from other published sources showing gain/loss relative to seats held at dissolution of Scotland's councils.

Ward results

North Isles

*2012: 3xIndependent *2017: 3xIndependent *2012-2017 Change: no change

Shetland North

*2012: 3xIndependent *2017: 3xIndependent *2012-2017 Change: no change

Shetland West

*2012: 3xIndependent *2017: 3xIndependent *2012-2017 Change: no change

Shetland Central

*2012: 3xIndependent *2017: 3xIndependent *2012-2017 Change: no change

Shetland South

*2012: 3 x Independent *2017: 2 x Independent, 1 x Scottish National Party *2012-2017 Change: SNP gain one seat from Independent

Lerwick North

*2012: 3 x Independent *2017: 3 x Independent *2012-2017 Change: 3 x Independent

Lerwick South

*2012: 4xIndependent *2017: 4xIndependent *2012-2017: No change

Retiring Councillors

Changes Since 2017

*† Lerwick South Independent

Beatrice Wishart Beatrice Wishart (born 1955 or 1956) is a Scottish Liberal Democrats politician who has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Shetland since 2019. Wishart currently serves as education spokesperson for her party, and has a seat ...

was subsequently elected as

Member of the Scottish Parliament Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP; gd, Ball Pàrlamaid na h-Alba, BPA; sco, Memmer o the Scots Pairliament, MSP) is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament. Electoral system The ad ...

for

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

at the 2019 Shetland by-election as a Liberal Democrat. A by-election was held on 7 November 2019. It was held by Independent Stephen Flaws. *†† Shetland Central Independent Mark Burgess resigned his seat on 20 September 2019 for personal reasons. A by-election was held on 7 November 2019. The seat was retained by another Independent Moraig Lyall.

By-elections since 2017

Footnotes

{{United Kingdom local elections, 2017

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

2017 Scottish local elections 21st century in Shetland