Sir, –We know that the Levenmouth area has been struggling for years but the latest national deprivation league tables show us now close to very bottom.
How can it be that Levenmouth is now ranked alongside and battling relegation with the worst ex-industrial localities of Glasgow, Greenock and Paisley, known to be amongst the most deprived in Europe?
In terms of local derbies, we’re barely competing with our immediate hard pressed Fife neighbours.
True there’s been bad luck along the way, such as the Energy Park which was maybe our best hope, has never taken off.
True, the economic growth across Scotland in the 1990s and 2000s bypassed Levenmouth almost entirely and that’s left us especially vulnerable to the harsh austerity of the past decade.
However, maybe management has been sadly lacking.
None of the MPs or MSPs are based in Levenmouth and, from what I can gather, very few council workers live in this area.
Of course, even though you strike rock bottom there’s still hope. Maybe when trains arrive, and other projects reach fruition, our fortunes may turn around but let’s not hold our breath.
Our population is slowly declining due to lack of opportunity. Remedial action has been inadequate for decades and it will take a continuous, targeted effort by government, local authorities and business to achieve a scale of impact needed to reverse this.
James Robertson.
Casan,
Leven.
Football, voters and theories
Sir, – I saw an interesting fact the other day: 60% of towns/cities with teams in the English Premier Football League voted to remain, whilst 72% of towns/cities with teams in the three lower English Leagues voted for Brexit.
Not wishing to read too much into this, but it does suggest to me that winners voted to remain: in life as in football, perhaps.
And, to extrapolate further, the fact that all areas of Scotland voted to remain, is maybe an indication that Scottish football could be heading for a resurgence.
I know this is a fairly tenuous theorem, but, in terms of the Scotland international team, all straws should be clutched.
Les Mackay.
5 Carmichael Gardens,
Dundee.
The kindness of strangers
Sir, – I would like to thank two strangers who came to my rescue when my bicycle suffered a mechanical failure on Friday February 7 near Blairingone.
In the freezing cold, I had been trying to hitch a ride but no one stopped. After 20 minutes, a lovely lady stopped to pick me up and went out of her way to drop me at Cowdenbeath railway station. Pierrette, thank you!
As I then stood in the High Street trying to find a coffee shop before getting on the train, a shop-owner noticed me shivering and came out, asking me if I wanted to rest in her shop.
Apart from the practical help offered by both women, their kindness was very “warming”.
So, I’d like to use The Courier’s pages to thank both women.
Thank you!
John Taylor.
1 Hillpark Gardens,
Edinburgh.
We can’t afford climate inaction
Sir, – In response to the letter on Friday February 7 (“No power for carbon fantasy”) stating that the move towards a carbon neutral society is a fantasy – well, the reality is rather sobering.
The planet is finite, and it cannot support ever-growing consumption from an ever-growing population.
We do need to reduce our wasteful habits, and many of these changes are actually beneficial to us.
Our current society already has burdened future generations with huge amounts of financial debt, over £1 trillion (the UK national debt), and we now further burden our children with environmental debts too.
Financial debts can be paid off, but once a plant, insect or animal goes extinct, that debt cannot be undone.
Due to man’s activities, such extinctions are occurring at 1,000 to 10,000 times the natural rate.
Denial or procrastination will accelerate these debt levels.
Therefore the economic, environmental and moral argument is to take action now – it really is a case of the classic proverb “a stitch in time saves nine”.
De-carbonising our society may indeed be a hard goal to meet, but the facts and trends stack up, and the warning lights are currently flashing red.
Whatever our political outlook – Green, Red, Blue or Yellow, we must all accept the science and the economics with the best grace we can, and tackle this problem.
Iain MacDonald.
56 Grove Road,
Broughty Ferry.
Care home opportunity lost
Sir, – In his letter of February 7 (“Care homes for East Neuk”) James Bowman criticised Fife Council for failing thus far to find a suitable site between Crail and Elie to replace Anstruther’s ailing Ladywalk House and for apparently lacking impetus to proceed.
A more appropriate criticism of the council would be their failure to promulgate their own earlier proposal to rebuild in part of the adjoining Bankie Park.
Then, faced with a clever and well organised but misleading campaign to Keep Bankie Park Green, the council forbade its employees to speak in favour of their plan and conspicuously failed to argue their own case.
This was despite the proposed site already being owned by the council, and the existing recreational facilities of Bankie Park being preserved.
No other site in the East Neuk can be acquired without considerable cost and we all know councils are currently so strapped for cash that they cannot fulfill their existing statutory requirements, so the chances of a replacement care home must be near zero.
If only a determined effort had been made at the time to sell the advantages of rebuilding at the current site.
The Ladywalk House replacement could have been well under way by now.
W W Motion.
St Andrews Road,
Anstruther.
Beware the Tory love bomb
Sir, – There are many things for which SNP politicians can be, should be and, as far as I’m concerned, certainly will be, criticised.
But while they dither over a new independence referendum, the Johnson Regime plan to go on the offensive.
Having starved Scotland of funds, they’re now blaming Nicola Sturgeon & Co for Tory austerity, and plan to ride to the “rescue” with money stolen from us.
Boris Johnson & Co plan “generous” Scottish announcements.
Much of this “generosity” will be fake; big words which turn out to mean little or nothing.
The purpose of this “love bomb” offensive is to deflect attention away from their attack on Scottish democracy.
Any time Mr Johnson or any of his cronies show their faces in Scotland, they should be met with open hostility.
The Tories have been in power for 10 years.
They should not get away with presenting themselves as something “new”.
They’re the same old lying, thieving, hypocritical, privileged gang they always were.
Dave Coull.
Findowrie,
Angus.
