Two paintings by the renowned Orcadian artist Stanley Cursiter were sold for a total of £20,000 at an auction on Tuesday evening.

Cursiter¹s 1954 oil painting, The Old Man Of Hoy (pictured), sold for £11,250,while his 1924 watercolour picture, Rolling Waves, Orkney, fetched £8,750.

The two Cursiter paintings were among around 250 Scottish pictures, which sold for £4,893,900, at the Sotheby¹s sale at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire.

Orkney Islands Council are seeking public views on their bus service contracts for 2009.

The council are looking for feedback, before going out to tender, and recently established a Bus User Forum which allows for public comment. The next meeting of this forum will be held, in the MacGillivray Room of the Orkney Library and Archives, on September 1, at 2pm.

Anyone interested in attending should contact the council¹s transportation team on 873535.

Scottish Government ministers will decide whether plans to alter and extend Kirkwall’s Ayre Hotel should go ahead, after Orkney Islands Councillors went against objections from SEPA on Wednesday afternoon. 

OIC may have made history, as it is believed that this is the first time that any planning authority in Scotland has ever overruled an objection from SEPA.

SEPA objected to the plans on the grounds of potential flood risk, however uncertainties over SEPA’s facts and figures were raised by Stephen Kemp of Orkney Builders. 

Stromness lifeboat carried out a search of the Scapa area on Wednesday morning, following a report of what was thought to be an empty dinghy near the Royal Oak buoy.

However, a spokesman from Shetland Coastguard said that it was a false alarm with good intent.

Council house tenants face a rise in rent of 5.3 per cent next year.

Councillors at the Orkney Islands Council social work and housing committee meeting recommended the increase on Tuesday.

If approved by full council, it will be equivalent to the current rate of inflation, plus one per cent - or an average increase of £2.66 a week - bringing the average weekly rent to £52.78.

A red and black mountain bike was removed from a communal stairwell in Kirklands Road, Kirkwall, on Tuesday, August, 26, between 8pm and 11pm.

Anyone who has information at to the whereabouts of the bike, or who may have taken it should contact Kirkwall Police Station.

On the Saturday night of Shopping Week (July 26), a lady's jacket was removed from the Flattie Bar in the Stromness Hotel. The jacket was described as Top Shop make, green and black in colour.

There is nothing to suggest that the jacket was taken deliberately and police would ask that anyone who may have it, or knows of its whereabouts contact either Stromness or Kirkwall police.