Sir, Along with a good turnout from the Ceres district community I attended a recent community council meeting to hear an update on the proposal for a three-turbine windfarm at Caskerdo Farm.
This proposal has been registered with Fife Council since December 2011 and a representative from RDS Element Power Ltd briefed the meeting on their plans and progress to date. The briefing was not a success as the audience left the event with more questions than answers.
Mr Douglas Henry from RDS Element Power Ltd may well have considered that he has engaged with the community by speaking in loose terms about the plans for the Caskerdo windfarm but the lack of detail, unclear path ahead and obvious lack of site knowledge did nothing to ease concerns in the local community.
The only sure thing from this encounter is that the community faces a long legal process through a scoping exercise, environmental impact assessment leading to an eventual application for planning permission.
Given the lamentableprogress since 2011, the above necessary components will take years to complete before Fife Council even get to consider a possible application for planning consent. Regrettably, this has been the case for other such windfarm planning applications.
It is hoped that the planning department of Fife Council realises that the local community adversely affected by the proposal of the Caskerdo windfarm is most unhappy with the prospective time frame to settle this matter.
Surely a reasonable but realistic timeframe should be imposed by local authorities on such renewable energy companies to put their case forward.
If they are not capable of investing the necessary resources to meet such a task then it begs the question as to whether they are fit to manage such business in the first place.
Philip Mould. Struthers Barns House, Craigrothie, Cupar.
This situation is helping no-one
Sir, You reported on the recent disruptions to the brown bin collection in Stirling district because of a one day strike by council staff now resulting in the council announcing it will prematurely halt the garden waste collections over a month earlier than normal.
This makes no sense especially with autumn and falling leaves just around the corner. After all, the one-day stoppage was the equivalent to a one-day holiday and that never results in such drastic action with catch-up collections quickly clearing the bins.
It appears the council is now more interested in rubbing salt in the workers’ wounds in the aftermath of their Unite union leadership doing a volte-face shortly after organising the strike in the first place. Both sides of this confrontation are letting down hard-working council employees who lost a day’s pay because they followed their union advice. During this banking-led recession we all need to pull together in a community-minded way rather than seek confrontations which serve no-one.
It’s time for better leadership on both sides and we should remind the council of the need to think again as it’s their paymasters (council tax payers) who ultimately are made to suffer because of this type of nonsense.
Galen Milne. Ochiltree , Dunblane.
It will never take off
Sir, I was sorry to see the last Leuchars air show having attended every year since 1953. The move to Lossiemouth is a result of misguided government policy.
In The Courier report of the show on Monday I read of Mr Salmond’s cheap jibe that a “yes” vote at the referendum would see the show’s return. I wondered what sort of advert would herald that: “Come and see our aerobatic team The Tartan Arrows flying their Tiger Moths”?
No thanks. That will never get off the ground!
JS Haldane. 8A Bingham Terrace, Dundee.
We should support action
Sir, June Reid is mistaken to write (Letters September 10) we had no terrorist problems until George Bush and Tony Blair invaded Iraq and Afghanistan not that such invasions should be applauded.
In 1980 there was the Iranian embassy siege that required our SAS to sort it out.
In 1982 Abu Nidal killed the Israeli Ambassador in London. In 1988 we had the PanAm Lockerbie attack.
In 1994 car bombs at the Israeli Embassy and Balfour House in London.
As she suggests, we should step back from involvement in Middle East problems if she means Muslim on Muslim, Sunni against Shiite problems but having suffered Islamist attacks we should recognise, as the above terrorist actions prove, Israel is at the sharp end of an
Islamist onslaught and has been for 65 years.
We should support action against Islamist terrorism in any country. Because we do not know when it will visit us again.
Andrew Lawson. 9 MacLaren Gardens, Dundee.
Disability, not “a difficulty”
Sir, Your report on page four, September 10, regarding the closure of Kemback Street ARC, indicated that Ken Lynn was talking about “people with learning difficulties”.
I would suggest that the correct term is a learning disability. We all have a learning difficulty of one sort or another.
Alistair Angus. 7 Ashton Terrace, Strathmartine, by Dundee.