Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, – A site has emerged for a replacement Madras College which is generating a good deal of interest and enthusiasm. The site is Petheram Bridge, currently in use as a car park.
The advantages of this site are many. It is a huge site with plenty of room for a two or even three-storey building; it is adjacent to the current playing fields at Station Park, access to which could easily and relatively cheaply be provided by a cut-and-cover tunnel; it is adjacent to the bus station for intra-town transport links; the present car park between the bus station and Kinburn Park would ideally be the school car park with public use at weekends and during holidays.
The site is next to tennis courts, a museum and art gallery, a golfing range, a nine-hole golf course and a beach, allowing exciting and innovative curricular opportunities.
The original world-class links which were proposed with the university for the Langlands site could be revived due to the proximity of the science campus.
The numerous buses from the bridgehead area would not have to come into town and would benefit from the existing ”turning circle” round Station Park.
The site would also allow the school to be a ”good neighbour” in that, with a relatively small number of exceptions, the area is largely non-residential.
There would be no need for a decant of pupils from the present buildings, something large numbers of parents dread to the point of unacceptability. Critically, the site is already in council ownership and so an application for outline planning permission could be made almost immediately.
Rather than being obtrusive, the building would complete the existing circle of buildings all modern which stretches from the golf range round to Andrew Melville Hall; however, it need not hide away but should be an iconic building at the gateway to the town, another chapter in our town’s long association with education.
Callum MacLeod.36 Radernie Place,St Andrews.
We can multi-task, Struan
Sir, – Struan Stevenson (”Unionists must not take eye off the ball and allow EU to become a distraction”, July 5) has a low opinion of his fellow Scots if he thinks we cannot concentrate on more than one issue at a time.
We can easily handle two referenda, one for or against an independent Scotland and the other on the UK’s future relations with the EU. Just bring them on as soon as possible both at the same time, no matter!
I, and I am sure many thousands of Scots, do not need another two years to ponder on Scottish independence. I could give my answer to that now: I am proud to be a Scot, but I am also glad to be British. I shall vote against independence for Scotland.
As for the EU, it has done enough damage to British interests in every sphere. It is not what Britons voted for in the 1970s. I want out.
As a Conservative voter, I am very disappointed at David Cameron’s failure to keep his promise of a referendum on the EU in this parliament.
Perhaps Struan Stevenson wants to postpone the EU referendum because he knows he will be voted out of a very lucrative job.
Roll on the referenda!
George McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Recognise we want out
Sir, – Of course Struan Stevenson MEP wants to do the Cameron Waltz and dodge any referendum on EU membership because UKIP is right about what Britain wants and we are out-flanking the Conservatives, et al, on that.
He is, of course, right that the Scottish referendum is vital to the United Kingdom’s future. A vote for independence will break us up; Unionists must stand together on that. It is ground held dear by UKIP and we wholeheartedly agree we are ”better together”. Indeed, ”better together and out”, I say.
Odd that those who see themselves as the big boys, but who clearly fear UKIP, have not asked UKIP on to the Unionist platform. It has become a Scottish Parliament Club it should reach out to all parties and people.
The real issue on all counts (there are three) is not ”independence” but sovereignty. SNP style independence is weak, being ”in Europe” and thus still under the heel of Brussels.
Secondly, as we are, we are still under the heel of Brussels and most of us want out.
Thirdly, Struan is making the most of the two referenda as issues a smokescreen for the as yet unmentioned forthcoming EU elections the timing all amuckle with the Scottish Referendum.
Elections in which UKIP is set to return the greatest number of British MEPs.
Mike Scott-Hayward.Chairman,UK Independence Party,Scotland.
Even bigger piggy banks
Sir, – I thought the days of putting one’s money in a piggy bank were over.
Not so we still stuff our money in piggy banks, great big ones that are, in fairness to pigs, even more greedy than these voracious creatures.
At a trough lavishly filled to the brim with our hard-earned money, snouts never cease to try to sniff out ever-greater bonuses as truffles to be devoured for their own gratification.
They revel above the law and moral sanction.
We should huff and puff and blow their house down.
Leslie Milligan.18b Myrtlehall Gardens,Dundee.
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