Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, I read of the proposed speed limit reduction on Dundee’s Riverside from 50mph to 40mph with disbelief. I can’t for the life of me see the benefit.
Riverside is an open, wide road with little need for this. The councillor has stated there have been a few accidents. I’m sure there have, but were they all speed-related? Will this reduce the accidents?
I would contend that if you have the skills to crash on a road such as Riverside, 10mph isn’t going to make much difference.
Pedestrians are another factor on Riverside. I have often seen them make a mad dash in front of traffic to get to the sports pitches or the carnival. Hardly the fault of the driver, and the speed reduction will not curtail this behaviour.
It’s time government, both local and national, stopped looking at speed as the overriding factor in all accidents and started looking at behaviour and education.
D. Beveridge.Warwick Close,Leuchars.
Re-writing care home history
Sir, I read with wry amusement the attempt to re-write history in the letter from Joyce Smith (November 16), where she condemned the ‘misery and disruption’ that any potential replacement of Council care homes would have on residents.
Lest we forget, the only administration that has ever closed council-run care homes in Fife is the Labour administration, led by Cllr Alex Rowley, of which Ms Smith was an elected Labour Party councillor. The Labour Party Budget motion of March 5 1996, from my recollection, closed Parkdale and Denend care homes.
The SNP-proposed budget of that year sought to keep them open, but this was voted down by Ms Smith’s colleagues. To be fair to Ms Smith, she was absent on the day in question, but then, I don’t recall any letters from her to the papers condemning the decision of her party colleagues.
Finally, since more than 80% of all care home provision in Fife is already in the private and third sector, if Ms Smith is advocating that these facilities are all sub-standard, she is clearly a better judge than the Care Inspectorate, who have rated care home provision in Fife, public and private, among the best in Scotland.
In addition Fife Council pay a premium above the National Care Home Contract to help maintain that quality.
Cllr John Beare.27 Balbirnie Street,Markinch.
Does no-one check out stats?
Sir, I read a report by a leading economist which pointed out that, in an attempt to get the public and local councils to back their projects, over-exaggerated claims from developers is the norm.
This is seemingly especially true when it comes to claims over job creation and benefit to local economies.Developers and their backers know full well that such claims are impossible to disprove until the projects are up and running.
The report went on to say that practically no check is ever done by local councils once a project is finished to see if in fact the developers’ claims hold water.
Perhaps it is time they did, as all councils could then decide on future applications based purely on the merits of the plans and not be swayed by unproven economic benefits or by exaggerated jobs claims.
R. T. Smith.30 Braeside Terrace, Aberdeen.
Truly a missed opportunity
Sir, Ex-Scottish Enterprise executive Ray Macfarlane, pictured in The Courier alongside Sports Minister Shona Robison handing over a brass plate to the British Golf Museum in St Andrews, tells us that this new wall fixture is “a valuable stamp of quality which tells visitors that the collection inside is of national and quite often international importance.”
But surely a more effective way to broadcast this would be the award of Unesco World Heritage status to St Andrews as a ”place of pilgrimage” for golf tourists, students, monks and scholars?
Unfortunately, however, both St Andrews and Arbroath were deleted from the ‘tentative’ UK nomination list last year that the English-run UK National Commission for Unesco drew up without even troubling to visit either St Andrews or Arbroath.
Perhaps Fiona Ballantyne, who chairs Museums and Galleries Scotland, could explain why her own (English-born) CEO who sat on the UK National Commission for Unesco failed to recognise the boost to tourism in Fife and Angus Unesco World Heritage designation might have brought to both?
Neil Robertson.4 Glamis Terrace, Dundee.
Bringing shame to fire service
Sir, Sheriff Desmond Leslie spoke for the nation when he issued his derisive verdict on fire chiefs who ordered colleagues not to rescue a dying woman trapped down a mine shaft.
Alison Hume would have survived if firefighters had ignored health and safety-obsessed officers, done the job they were trained to do and winched her out.
The group commander insulted the court’s intelligence with his ridiculous claim that the operation had a ‘successful outcome’ because her body was finally brought up.
The sheriff rightly dismissed this, saying Mrs Hume’s injuries were survivable but she died of acute hypothermia brought on by the force’s six hours of inaction.
I cannot think of a more shaming incident in the history of the fire service and the refusal of the Strathclyde brigade to apologise to her family is simply deplorable.
Dr John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Get involved: to have your say on these or any other topics, email your letter to letters@thecourier.co.uk or send to Letters Editor, The Courier, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL.