A968 (Lerwick - Sumburgh)

This article is about the original A968, from Lerwick to Sumburgh.
For the current A968 from Hillside to Haroldswick, see A968.

Looking north along the A970 (former A968)

The original route of the A968 was south of Lerwick in the Shetlands. It started on the A969 and headed south on King Harald Street through the centre of Lerwick, before turning west onto Scalloway Road, now the A969. The A968 then headed south along the east coast of Mainland, along a route which has been vastly upgraded and realigned as the modern route of the A970 to Channerwick, where it morphed into the B9071 at the junction with what is now the B9122.

By 1932 the A968 had been extended further south by about half as much again along the whole of the ex-B9071 to reach Sumburgh, where it ended near the Sumburgh Hotel, thus connecting Shetland's capital to its southernmost point. Sumburgh's airport was then built in 1936, originally with grass runways, although it is not shown on maps until the 1950s making it impossible to know its early relationship with the road. It was later taken over and redeveloped by the RAF during the war, with the A968 re-routed around the southern perimeter, although runway extensions have further changed the route since then.

The entire A968 was renumbered as a southern extension of the A970 after World War II - it is still shown as the A968 on maps from 1948, but renumbered by the mid 1950s. The A968 number was moved north around the same time to create a new A road across Yell and Unst.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: Lerwick - Channerwick