Sir, Most of your readers will be aware of and many affected by the recent floods due to the heavy rain.
For many this may not be their first devastating flood experience.
I accept that this past year has been one of the wettest I can recall and I am three score and more years old.
The ground is saturated and never gets a chance to really dry.
In rural areas field drains struggle to cope with water and much of this overspills on to the roads and properties.
People are advised to evacuate or move valuables and go upstairs and to switch off electrical appliances.
All very good advice, but very little is said by theagencies (SEPA) and councils about the primary cause of the flooding.
It would appear now that river beds/burns and roadside ditches seem to be forgotten about with regard to maintennance.
Over the years river beds/burns have all been allowed to silt up and build-up with other cast-off items.
This has an obvious knock-on effect, as we are now witnessing.
Surely if the rivers, burns and ditches were deepened and properly maintained this would reduce the volume of water spilling onto roads and into villages.
I am awarethat this kind of work does cost a lot of money but so do insurance claims, the emergency services who have to respond to these floods and the major repairs in the aftermath.
It must be more economical to be proactive rather than reactive?
James C T Angus. The Bothy, Muirhead Farm, Craigrothie, Cupar.
Windfarm bid by St Andrews Uni is shabby
Sir, St Andrews University is not merely flouting local opinion with its shabby bid to install wind turbines at Dunino, but is repudiating its own motto, which, translated from the classical Greek, is: “Always Do Your Best,” which must surely be applied to moral as well as academic questions.
The renewables’ march across the countrysidedamages our environment, transfers money from ordinary people who pay electricity bills to the already rich, landowners, developers and foreign manufacturers, all for an intermittentpittance of electricity.
In policies demonstrating their bone-headedness and carelessness for our nation, politicians have not come clean and admitted the costly futility of this energy policy, which desperately needs to be reversed.
For St Andrews University, my own alma mater, whose staff must be aware of that background, to seek funding from installing a windfarm is shabby indeed.
Accordingly, I will never subscribe to any of its appeals as long as this policy holds.
(Dr) Charles Wardrop. 111 Viewlands Road West, Perth.
Just what are the objections?
Sir, Reference the article on “engineered tracks” (Farming, December 18), I wonder what are the objections to such perfectly aesthetic trackways from the mountaineering and other lobbies?
General Wade built such tracks/roads in the 18th Century and many are still in use for such recreational (not the original intention) purposes as access for hillwalkers and mountaineers and other lovers of our highland scenery.
They can also provide access for rescue vehicles when members of the aforementioned groups get into difficulty as is happening, it seems, with increasing frequency.
The more, the better I believe.
A T Geddie. 68 Carleton Avenue, Glenrothes.
This truth will always stand
Sir, Re the letter from secularist Alistair McBay, I agree that groups within some religious circles, sadly including the Church of Scotland, are quite at odds with each other in their arguments of support or opposition to same-sex marriage, and therefore lose credibility with the outsider.
The only real argument, or rather declaration, is the original biblical definition of marriage, inspired by God in Genesis chapter 2, verse 24 : “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”
This truth will stand, regardless of proposed legislation by the present generation.
Stuart Wishart. 12 Walnut Grove, Blairgowrie.
Wrong people recognised
Sir, The honours system has always seemed to me a cynical parody devised and run by the establishment and those who really do “good works” are seldom recognised.
Vultures scavenge credit for other people’s efforts and join the inevitable collection of posers, spivs, politicians, civil servants, bankers and outright crooks.
I would have thought the debauchment of the system had reached such a stage that any individual with a smattering of integrity would feel insulted to be offered one.
Dr John Cameron. 10 Howard Place, St Andrews.