On the agenda today are putting Dundee on the world map, the Connect2 bridge across the Tay, a banker out of touch with most people’s reality, renewables vs oil and gas, changed days for state schools and the long-term cost of wind farms.
V&A will bring enormous benefits to Dundee Sir,-I hope I will be only one of thousands who will visit the exhibition of the six shortlisted architects’ proposals for the Dundee branch of the V&A.
For once, Dundee is in the position of having a choice of world-class architecture and design to select from. I would recommend everyone visits the University of Abertay library to view the designs.
However, if this fabulous Dundee V&A actually happens, only one-third of its cost will come from our SNP Scottish Government.
When you analyse the scandalous amount of financial incentives which have been mooted by our renewable energy-loving SNP Government to entice Forth Energy’s biomass incinerator to a location just a few hundred yards down stream, it verges on the obscene.
The Dundee V&A is a more deserving project and will equally create jobs, probably more, than the incinerator. It will put Dundee on the world map for all the right reasons. It would be an enormous benefit to our city.
Ian Milne,Netherton of Craigie,Craigiebarn Road,Dundee.
Do golfers need 18 holes?
Sir,-I would like to add my views to recent letters about the Connect2 bridge project across the Tay at Perth.
This is a wonderful idea for all Perth folk and visitors to the city and we are getting it a bargain price. Thousands will enjoy this bridge and use it to access both sides of the Tay for decades, if not centuries.
It will be a tremendous boon for all and will allow us to enjoy more of our beautiful riverside area.
I am sorry that some golfers and a few residents will be briefly inconvenienced for the pleasure of a greater majority.
Perhaps if Perth and Kinross Council needs to save money they could reduce the subsidies to the North Inch golf course which has already been the recipient of considerable council largesse in the last few years.
Previous correspondents have been concerned about the costs to the public purse. The council could consider selling a few fairways and have enough left over to build two bridges.
Do golfers really need all 18 holes?
Bob Ferguson,North Muirton,Perth.
Spending spree off limits for most
Sir,-The Bank of England’s deputy governor Charlie Bean has urged people to go on a spending spree.
Mr Bean seems to have come from another planet.
On a basic salary of £250,000 and no doubt generous bonuses and expenses, he is well able to choose to go on a spending spree.
But those on a tenth of his salary and many are on much less with no bonuses or expenses are in no position to make such a choice.
William W. Scott,23 St Baldred’s Road,North Berwick.
Culture of dependency
Sir,-Your report (September 30) quoted First Minister Alex Salmond as saying that renewables represent a bigger and longer-lasting opportunity for Scotland than North Sea oil and gas.
Is he aware of the massive difference between these two industries? North Sea oil and gas made huge tax contributions to the country whereas wind, wave and so on receive huge subsidies.
Not quite in the same league, I would maintain.
G. M. Lindsay,Whinfield Gardens,Kinross.
Get back to basics in schools
Sir,-My three medical brothers and I were well served in the 1950s by the local state school down in the valley from our high-moorland mining village. We were sent out like gladiators to do battle in the university scholarship competitions, well aware that the other village families, as well as the school, were watching.
And our main competition came not from the haute bourgeoisie in the private schools but from other aspirational working-class children in the Scottish high schools.
Some time in the 1960s state education in Scotland lost the plot and adopted an anti-work, anti-achievement culture which crushed the hopes of both pupils and parents.
Yet these great post-war schools were driven solely by the innate ability of the pupils, the quality of the staff and the peer-group culture. Surely that can be resurrected?
(Dr) John Cameron,10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Blowing away billions
Sir,-Your recent correspondence exposing the inadequacies of wind farms as a power source have not touched on the cost. The additional subsidy for wind farms, presently running at £1 billion per year, is destined to continue for at least 25 years.
It is money we do not need to pay as wind farm electricity cannot ever be used to replace any of the conventional mix of generators that we have always had and will always need.
Thus, by cancelling the building of more wind farms we will, over the next 25 years, have at least £25 billion to spend on more essential projects such as building the aircraft carriers we sorely need and operating them with their full complement of aircraft and weapons.
All this money would be spent in this country providing British firms and British workforces with jobs and security of employment instead of being handed over to foreign firms, foreign workers and foreign shareholders.
William Oxenham,5 Easter Currie Place,Currie.
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