Thursday’s letters discuss Perth’s planned footbridge, a lack of deliveries from BP and the impact on fellow Greenock prisoners of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s departure.
Bridge objectors not representative of Perth Sir,-As P. G. Wodehouse said, “It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.”
Replace Scotsman with North Inch golfer and the phrase is written for the Connect2 bridge saga.
We continue to be bombarded by comments from the North Inch Users’ Group but who are they?
Certainly the group does not represent cyclists, runners, walkers, wheelchair users or dog owners all frequent visitors to the North Inch. A more accurate description would be North Inch Golf Course Users’ Group and, therefore, not voicing the interests of all users.
The suggestion that a petition, opposed to the bridge, has attracted 1000 signatures has little relevance given a Perth population of around 44,000.
Might we assume that a majority of abstainers are fully supportive of the council’s innovative project?
The reality of this saga is that once built, more people will traverse the pedestrian and cycle bridge in a single day than will use the golf course, which does pose another question why do we have an 18-hole golf course sitting on a flood plain that is often unplayable?
When the dust settles and the footbridge spans the River Tay, the only disappointment will be that it was not completed during Perth’s 800th anniversary celebrations.
Kenneth G. N. Stewart.North Street,St Andrews.
Road crossing needed more
Sir,-Golfers are up in arms about the projected new pedestrians’ and cyclists’ bridge over the Tay at Perth.
Most welcome such a bridge their beef is its location. Our councillors are apparently unanimous in their backing and it looks like going ahead.
We are in the midst of an economic crisis and we need a pedestrian bridge like we need a hole in the head. Yes, there is funding available, but council taxpayers will also have to stump up, not only for a large proportion of its capital cost but for its future maintenance.
The whole project should be scrapped now.
What Perth needs is a network of new roads and a road bridge linking them to the existing roads to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Blairgowrie, Forfar and Inverness.
If the council wished, a new road bridge could incorporate pedestrian walkways and cycle tracks.
However, like every other project of this kind, such as the demolition of the City Hall, once set in motion, there is no stopping the council juggernaut.
George K. McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Megrahi is missed
Sir,-Stefan Morkis’s news feature about Pan Am Flight 103 (December 21) reminds me of my late father who was, for many years, the prison chaplain at Polmont borstal and a member of the Barlinnie visiting committee.
He said that, of course, most prisoners believed themselves innocent but if both the other inmates and the prison staff agreed, it was likely there had been a miscarriage of justice.
This was certainly true of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, whose release from Greenock prison caused outrage in America, though not in Lockerbie nor among the British families.
He is still missed by his fellow prisoners, partly because he had a huge television with satellite channels (paid for by Libya) which they piled into his suite of rooms to watch.
But the real reason is that he read illiterate local prisoners their letters and crafted the most beautiful replies, full of love and longing, to their mothers, wives and sweethearts.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Left in cold by power firm
Sir,-I can second Dr. King’s letter (December 21) regarding the poor LPG delivery service from BP.
My husband placed an order on November 26 and we have yet to receive a delivery. I have spent hours on the telephone. I have emailed them and left countless messages.
I turned my AGA off 10 days ago and the heating went the same way a week ago. I am now reliant on the microwave.
I now have no hot water either. My husband is disabled and diabetic which BP are well aware of. We live on a main road, which has been passable every day during the bad weather.
To add insult to injury, I have just had a letter from BP announcing that, from now, the price of LPG has risen to 60p per litre.
BP should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves but I somehow doubt they are.
Christina Maxwell.Kinloch,Blairgowrie.
Poor pay for wind subsidies
Sir,-The latest figures show that a third of Scottish households are suffering from fuel poverty.
As I write this letter, the outside air temperature is -10C and there are old people dying of hypothermia because they cannot afford to heat their homes.
This is a national disgrace, especially when you consider that these old people are contributing to the £3 million per day (£1 billion per annum) subsidy that the wind industry is receiving from us.
We are sitting under another high-pressure system and, as usual, when we really need the electricity, most wind farms are hardly moving
I am monitoring the Neta website which shows that wind is contributing less than 0.5% of demand and 97% of our electricity is being generated by coal, gas and nuclear, the rest coming from hydro and from France.
There are no records of any carbon dioxide savings as a result of wind power, not a single coal, gas or nuclear power station has been, or can be, shut down.
Bob Graham.Inchberry,Orton,Moray.
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