What will happen to hub?
As one of the former users of the nowabandoned sports centre in Letham, I have attempted to raise a response from Perth and Kinross Council, or any of its councillors, on the future use of the facility.
As with any change of administration priorities can change and funds which were previously being allocated can be relocated to other projects, and rightly so.
But where does this leave abandoned projects such as Letham?
The SNP councillor for Letham was warned of this possibility but his attitude seemed to be ambiguous to say the least.
So if Letham hub is not going to be a sports centre and not going to be a community centre and there is no funding available what plans have the local councillors got for its survival?
The policies of the SNP and the Tories are in conflict so can anyone help? Jim Ferguson via email
When weather conditions are not favourable they produce next to nothing and oil, gas, coal and nuclear power have to be increased to compensate.
Meanwhile our mountains are sources of enormous quantities of water which could be harnessed to provide a constant and reliable source of energy.
In the 1920s and 30s the UK built a number of hydro-electric dams but for some reason – probably the availability of what was then cheap oil, gas and coal – dam construction stopped and has not been resumed in recent years.
There are huge areas of the Scottish Highlands which could be brought into use with the construction of dams and accompanying hydro-electric plants, which could not only provide a substantial part of our power needs but in a reliable, constant and easily controlled way.
An additional bonus would be the Building the Loch Sloy dam in 1950 conservation, if not the beautification, of our Scottish glens and moors by the introduction of artificial lochs in the form of dams, with the minimum of buildings, plant and machinery visible, such as we have at Pitlochry and other such sites exploited when Scots still had some vision, foresight and inventive genius.
The dams would render wind turbines redundant and consign those monstrosities to the dustbin where they belong.
There is another advantage to dams: they collect water from the streams running down from the mountains and hills around and control its flow.
Once it has been used to drive turbines, it flows on its way to the sea.
A certain amount of control can at present be exercised on the existing dams by releasing more water when needed during times of drought and by holding back surplus water in times of flood.
Britain suffers annually from floods in winter and spring and droughts in summer.
Certain parts of the country are more susceptible to both. Homes and roads are flooded and bridges are regularly washed away, with the inevitable cycle bringing summer droughts which bring hosepipe bans for many and emergency water supplies brought in by tanker for the unfortunate few.
If we constructed as many hydroelectric dams as we need in the appropriate parts of the country – Wales and Scotland in particular – we could prevent many of our annual floods and use stored water to alleviate the effects of our annual droughts.
An efficient national pipeline system could be constructed to distribute water to the areas most affected by drought.
Scotland could be a net exporter of water to the drier south of the UK – a useful source of income.
We also have vast quantities of water flowing past our doors in many parts of the country.
They are called rivers. Yet little seems to have been done to convert the power of river flow into electricity.
Again, little seems to have been done to control the flow of river water. Flood defences have been installed but the annual floods continue unabated.
Perhaps our engineers and planners should be looking at that for future attention. George McMillan Mount Tabor Avenue, Perth