Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, – As a regular user of Dundee Airport I feel dutybound to reply to Mr Shaw’s letter in Friday’s Courier regarding industrial action.
Dundee has a little gem of an airport right on its doorstep but I have always felt that it has been under-resourced and supported over the years.
In recent years I can not recall any significant advertisement campaigns or attempts to bring new flights into the city.
Flights from Dundee to London are three times the price of flights from Edinburgh.
This is undoubtedly a failing on behalf of Highlands and Islands senior management and nothing whatsoever to do with rank-and-file workers at the airport.
As for the airport being overstaffed, if anything I believe it is severely understaffed.
Having recently been talking to a charming gentleman who assisted me off my flight I was shocked to discover that he was in fact an airport firefighter and that his duties also included numerous other tasks such as baggage handling, aircraft refuelling and deicing.
Having asked around it appears that this jack-of-all-trades firefighter is an anomaly that appears to exist only at Dundee.
Having read that staff at other Highlands and Islands airports are being paid upwards of £10,000 per year more than staff at Dundee it is hardly surprising that staff at Dundee are being forced into industrial action.
I firmly believe that inequality should be challenged whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.
I wish all the hard-working Dundee staff every success in their fight for fair treatment.
Angus Fordyce.Camphill Road,Broughty Ferry.
People don’t care about breaking law
Sir, – I was very surprised by the comments made by Labour MSP John Park about the result of average speed camera use on the M90.
He finds ”an extraordinary number of people who are being caught by them”.
It’s really quite simple, John an extraordinary number of people don’t care about speed limits and are willing to break the law, so they are fined.
Does he believe this is unjustified and does he approve of his constituents breaking the law?
Gavin Drummond.33 Edenbank Road,Cupar.
Prediction of turnout hitting a record low
Sir, – Helen Brown’s article in Friday’s Courier was a splendid analysis of the present appalling political situation in Britain (‘So-called safe seats would be wrong to ignore this ‘one-off”).
Might I add two points?
Firstly, we have too many politicians and their attendant overpaid beaurocrats.
This takes a lot of money out of the economy which should be better used by reducing taxes and growing manufacturing industries.
More importantly, the last 30 years have seen a tremendous growth of the power of the party leaders, leaving the indians with little option but to add to the warpaint of their chiefs.
I am sure that Helen would agree with the obvious prediction that the forthcoming local elections will see an appalling if not record low turnout.
The politicians have successfully switched very many of us off.
Robert Lightband.Clepington Court,Dundee.
No thanks to destruction of our heritage
Sir, – I must disagree with Stan Blackly of Friends Of The Earth Scotland in his interpretation of public opinion (Saturday, April 21).
There is little doubt that many people support some of our power being produced by renewables, but this does not equate with support for windfarms.
If his company really wishes to protect the earth, how in the world can they be in favour of digging huge holes in our mountains, filling them with concrete and then topping them with massive industrial turbines?
How can they be in favour of building great roads up the mountain sides to reach these?
How can they approve of the removal of peat bogs and felling of trees to accommodate them peat bogs and trees being the earth’s natural method of carbon capture?
If they fear global warming how then do they account for the extra CO2 that the back-up conventional power stations will emit when trying to level out the intermittent electricity generation created by these same wind turbines?
These are issues that many in the green movement do not wish to confront.
Neither is it a good argument to call Donald Trump an ”ill-informed doom-monger” when he is a public figure attempting to point out to our ill-informed government the error of their ways.
I would suggest that Holyrood should be looking positively at making good use of the latest technology to use the reserves of shale gas recently revealed, which will provide a much cheaper source of electricity, as proven recently in America.
By all means let us push ahead with more water power, geothermal generation and some biomass, but as for further destruction of our beautiful mountain heritage no thank you.
Ann Cowan.The Old Inn,Fowlis Wester,Crieff.
Easy way to avoid charges
Sir, – Those who believe that the only reason councils put up speed trap cameras is to create extra revenue have the answer to their worries in their own hands just stop speeding.
That will immediately deprive the council of that revenue.
Alternatively, keep speeding, and maybe as a result our council tax bill will come down.
Mona Clark.9 Millbay Terrace,Dundee
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. Letters should be accompanied by an address and a daytime telephone number.