4th October 2026
It has been quite a busy week for Caithness.
There have been stories about buses, an election, hundreds of incoming workers, battery storage, the airport, tourism and a village shop.
On the surface they have little in common.
Look a little closer, however, and they raise some much bigger questions about the future of the county.
Is Caithness becoming more economically resilient? Are major projects creating lasting local benefits? And can communities themselves find ways of protecting services that the traditional commercial model can no longer sustain?
Here are seven stories from the past week that are worth watching.
1. Stagecoach leaves Wick and Thurso – and public ownership moves in
One of the biggest announcements was that Highland Council-owned D&E Coaches will take over Stagecoach's Thurso and Wick operation from 19 October.
The deal includes the existing fleet, depots and operational facilities. Most importantly for the local economy, all 26 Stagecoach employees – 20 drivers and six maintenance staff – will transfer to D&E with no redundancies.
Local bus services, school transport, private hire contracts and the Dounreay services currently operated by Stagecoach will continue.
This is more than a change of the name on the side of the buses.
Highland Council is deliberately expanding its involvement in bus services. It says the objective is to create a larger and more resilient publicly owned transport operation while protecting rural routes and reducing longer-term costs.
The interesting question for Caithness is whether this marks the beginning of a different model for rural transport.
Commercial operators have to make commercial decisions. A council has different objectives, including maintaining essential links for communities where a route might not be sufficiently profitable.
The experiment will be worth watching.
2. A new councillor for Wick and East Caithness
The Wick and East Caithness by-election has also produced a new Highland councillor, with Julie Calder of the Scottish Liberal Democrats winning the contest.
Turnout was around 30%.
The immediate political contest is now over, but the more interesting part is what happens next.
Wick and East Caithness has no shortage of issues requiring attention: transport, the town centre, housing, employment, health services, infrastructure and the future of Dounreay.
A by-election gives voters an opportunity to express a view. The real test for the successful candidate is what happens between elections.
The new councillor will be joining an existing group of representatives for the ward, and local people will be watching to see whether the promised attention to Wick and East Caithness translates into practical results.
3. Up to 500 workers could come to Thurso – but what will they leave behind?
Another story raises a much bigger economic-development question.
Plans for temporary accommodation in Thurso could provide accommodation for up to 500 workers connected with major energy infrastructure development.
That sounds like excellent news for the local economy.
Five hundred people need somewhere to live. They need food, transport and other services. Some will spend money locally and some businesses will undoubtedly benefit.
But there is an obvious question.
What happens when the work finishes?
There are already concerns that the accommodation could eventually become a "white elephant".
That concern should not be interpreted as opposition to the workers or the project.
Instead, it highlights a problem Caithness has encountered before.
Large projects can bring substantial numbers of workers into the area without necessarily bringing their families. Contractors can spend months or years here and then leave.
The economic-development challenge is therefore to turn temporary activity into permanent economic capacity.
Can some of these workers eventually become residents?
Can local companies win contracts?
Can new businesses emerge?
Can the infrastructure be adapted for another use when the construction phase ends?
Those are the questions that matter.
4. Dounreay and the battery-storage economy
There was also movement on the proposed battery energy-storage development at Dounreay.
Highland Council has now raised no objection after previously objecting because of a lack of information.
Battery storage is becoming an increasingly important part of Britain's electricity system as more intermittent renewable generation comes onto the grid.
For Caithness, this is particularly significant because the county is becoming a major location for energy infrastructure.
We have Dounreay.
We have renewable energy.
We have transmission infrastructure.
We have proposed battery storage.
And we have the continuing development of the electricity network.
That raises another question which deserves more attention:
Can Caithness become an energy infrastructure centre without remaining merely the place where infrastructure is built?
There is a huge difference between hosting equipment and developing an industry.
The latter means skilled jobs, local companies, training, research and businesses that remain after individual construction projects are completed.
That should be part of the conversation.
5. Wick airport is showing signs of life
There is also some encouraging news from Wick John O'Groats Airport.
Passenger numbers on the subsidised Public Service Obligation flights to Aberdeen and Glasgow are reportedly growing substantially, with Highland Council expressing confidence that the service can become successful and sustainable.
That is important.
For a peripheral economy, transport links are not a luxury.
A reliable air service can make a significant difference to businesses, professionals, students, tourists and residents who need to travel south.
But again, the crucial question is sustainability.
Growing passenger numbers are good news. The real test is whether the growth can eventually reduce the level of subsidy required to keep the service operating.
If it can, Wick Airport could become an increasingly valuable economic asset.
If it cannot, the argument will eventually return to whether the public subsidy is justified.
For now, however, increased use is certainly preferable to declining use.
6. The NC500 wants to spread the benefits
Tourism also featured this week, with the organisation behind the North Coast 500 announcing three new appointments and saying it wants to strengthen relationships with communities along the route and deliver wider benefits.
That is an important development because the NC500 has always had two sides.
It has put the north of Scotland on the international tourist map and brought substantial visitor spending.
But it has also generated concerns about congestion, infrastructure, housing and whether all communities receive a fair share of the economic benefits.
The challenge now is to move the conversation beyond visitor numbers.
How much money stays locally?
How many businesses benefit?
How many jobs are created?
Do visitors spend money in villages and towns, or simply drive through them?
And can tourism help sustain services that would otherwise disappear?
The answer could determine whether the NC500 is simply a successful tourist route or a genuine economic asset for northern communities.
7. Watten shows what communities can do themselves
Finally, there is a much smaller story that perhaps deserves more attention than it will receive.
Watten's community-run shop and post office is moving closer to its share-offer target.
The shop has become a focal point for the village and is expanding the range of goods and improving its facilities.
This is significant because rural communities are frequently told about decline as though there is nothing they can do about it.
Watten provides another possibility.
Instead of waiting for a commercial operator to decide that a shop is no longer profitable, the community has taken responsibility for maintaining an essential service.
It is not necessarily a model that can be copied everywhere.
But it demonstrates something important.
Local ownership can sometimes preserve services that conventional commercial ownership cannot.
And that brings us back to the bus story.
A common thread running through all seven
At first glance, these seven stories have very little in common.
But put them together and an interesting picture emerges.
Public ownership is expanding into transport.
Major energy projects are bringing new workers and infrastructure.
Battery storage is adding another element to Caithness's energy economy.
The airport is showing signs of increased use.
Tourism is being asked to deliver more for local communities.
A village is trying to protect its own shop through community ownership.
And a new councillor is arriving at Highland Council at a time when many of these issues are being debated.
The common question is whether Caithness can turn all this activity into lasting economic strength.
That is not guaranteed.
A construction worker who leaves when a project ends is not the same as a family that moves permanently to Caithness.
A battery site is not the same as a technology company employing dozens of local people.
A tourist passing through is not the same as a visitor staying several nights and spending money in Wick or Thurso.
And a bus service that survives is valuable, but even more valuable would be a transport system that helps people get to work, education and business opportunities.
The opportunity is there – but it needs joining together
Perhaps the biggest challenge is that these developments are often considered separately.
The airport is discussed as an airport.
Dounreay is discussed as Dounreay.
Battery storage is discussed as an energy project.
The NC500 is discussed as tourism.
The workers' village is discussed as accommodation.
The bus operation is discussed as public transport.
But Caithness needs to look at them as parts of the same economic system.
If hundreds of workers are coming to Thurso, can local businesses benefit?
If energy infrastructure is expanding, can Caithness develop specialist companies and training around it?
If more tourists are travelling through the county, can Wick and Thurso capture more of their spending?
If the airport grows, can businesses make better use of the improved connectivity?
If public transport is brought into public ownership, can it be designed around the economic needs of the area rather than simply existing routes?
And if communities are willing to take over threatened services, can government make it easier for them to do so?
These are much bigger questions than the individual announcements of the past week.
Caithness is not short of projects.
It may not even be short of opportunities.
The difficult part is making sure that the temporary, the external and the individual become permanent, local and connected.
That could be the difference between Caithness simply hosting economic activity and actually building a stronger economy of its own.