This morning’s letters to The Courier editor continue to discuss Forth Energy’s proposals for Dundee port. Also on the agenda are healthy and safety policy, the state of the economy and a plea for plain speaking.
‘Negative equity’ looms in wind turbine shadow Sir,-With reference to the letter from Andrew Scott, (April 21), I am sure Dundee is open for business. But not for exploitation, which is what the application by Forth Energy is all about.
I do not think there are any benefits or mitigation that would outweigh the huge damage to residential and visual amenity that the turbines and the biomass plant would cause.
These are significant impacts and local, and not so local, people are absolutely right to fight the application.
Mr Scott refers to misinformation and myths. Forth Energy referred in their consultation response document to wind power as being an alternative to conventional generation.
That is misinformation. It is additional, not an alternative. Is it a myth that the price of a house in close proximity to a 127-metre high wind turbine would be less than one that is not?
The fall in value could push some property into negative equity.
Is it a myth that turbines on the roadside would be a distraction to drivers?
Is it a myth that a couple in Lincolnshire were forced to move home by noise from turbines 900 metres away?
Is it a myth that a blade sheared of a turbine at Whitelees near Glasgow?
I could go on and people are right to be concerned.
The principal benefits are to Forth Port’s accounts.
Mr Scott is right to campaign for the commercial and industrial health of Dundee.
The biomass plant would provide some employment and the turbines, once erected, none.
However, the developments would also sterilise a lot of land that could be used to provide manufacturing and support facilities for the offshore wind farm industry as it develops.
Would that not be a more acceptable way for Forth Ports to regenerate their property asset base?
Graham Lang.Westermost,Coaltown of Callange,Ceres.
Energy bounty on doorstep
Sir,-Andew Scott’s letter is absolutely correct that Dundee missed the boat on the oil and gas industry not, because of lack of skills or knowhow, but because of lack of vision by the local authority.
Yes, Dundee must get into the renewables industry but the biomass or wind turbine routes, advocated by Forth Ports, are questionable for technical and environmental reasons. They are not beneficial to Dundee but desirable for profit to Forth Ports.
Biomass requires cutting down of forests and involves a burning process producing numerous harmful gases and ash.
Wind turbines, recognised as only 30% efficient, require optimum conditions to operate.
We have an opportunity to be a leader in the alternative of river flow and tidal energy, a largely untapped excellent source of a greater energy output than all the wind turbines and biomass plants put together.
The international intellectual property rights, having been designed and developed in Tayside, could create a leading industry in Dundee and district with huge export potential and hundreds of direct skilled and unskilled jobs with many supporting smaller supply firms growing up in the surrounding area.
John Cruickshank.Meadowview Drive,Inchture.
Learn to live with risk
Sir,-In the 21st century, ever more information becomes available to mankind but, perversely, we are growing worse and worse at weighing risk.
The SARS virus, swine flu, CJD, and bird flu were all predicted to kill millions but, after hugely expensive responses, the dangers proved to be infinitesimally slight.
The health and safety gestapo are the bane of our lives but the likes of Al Gore, with his silly nonsense about global warming, are almost as bad.
The lockdown of UK airspace which caused a domino effect in Europe and international mayhem was our predictable over-reaction to distant volcanic dust.
We need to get a handle on the precautionary principle used by our bureaucratic jobsworths to ban anything even remotely risky in case they get blamed later on.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.
Sinking economy
Sir,-The real issue of Britain being on the verge of bankruptcy has, of course, not been dealt with in the leaders’ television debates.
By comparison, with the waffle from all three party leaders, rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic would rank as a piece of masterly economic strategy.
Malcolm Parkin.15 Gamekeepers Road,Kinnesswood,Kinross.
Stating the obvious
Sir,-A leaflet produced by Cambridge Police and the Cambridge Community Safety Partnership was criticised by the Plain English Campaign for proclaiming that the “number one priority” was to “reduce offending”. The leaflet’s headline Police continue to target offenders was slammed as possibly the most pointless headline in history.
I was reminded of this while reading your report (April 27) on a Dundee community safety plan.
Your report contained such information as police will “take the lead in trying to improve intelligence” on organised crime and that drug dealing “has to be tackled” and that police will continue to “target dealers and users in known hotspots”.
Also, the need to reduce violent crime is stressed, and city centre drink-fuelled incidents will be addressed by high-profile policing.
This merely repeats what we’ve read before.
Perhaps if officialdom spent more time directly addressing the problems rather than stating the obvious then the need to periodically repeat these things would be reduced.
On the other hand, that might do some of them out of a job.
Stuart Winton.Hilltown,Dundee.