Solution is needed to solve road logjam
Toilets are needed at McCaig’s Tower
Sir,
I read the recent article ‘Disgust as human faeces found at Oban attractions’ (The Oban Times, September 7) and felt that I should repeat the stories told to me by residents of the area around the car park at McCaig’s Tower.
Not only has one resident been pestered for years for permission to use her toilet, but others tell of frequent use of their gardens as toilets by visitors to the tower.
I can testify to this as the path behind my garage has recently been used – a disgusting sight to come across first thing in the morning.
I’m aware that there has been a longstanding demand for facilities at the tower car park. Apparently a local contractor offered to build and maintain free of charge a small toilet facility in a space created when the council compulsorily purchased several lock-up garages a while ago. This offer was not taken up for various reasons, but the need remains, as is proved by the continuing use by visitors of local gardens and the car park itself as toilets.
The council has replied by saying: ‘Oban has sufficient public toilet facilities.’ This may be so, but they are located at Pulpit Hill, Ganavan Beach, the library, the railway station and the North Pier. These will not help an elderly tourist who has slogged up to McCaig’s Tower only to find that there is nowhere to go.
In the short term, maybe all the signs directing tourists to McCaig’s Tower should have an addition pointing out that there are no toilets there. If we take tourism seriously in this town, we ought to at least provide suitable facilities.
Rural economy is being starved
Sir,
It seems that not a day goes by when I’m contacted by farmers and crofters in my ward with justifiable concerns about single farm payments and the plight of our rural economy.
Unfortunately, the bad news just keeps rolling in as the Scottish Government could face a fine of up to £700,000 for the late payment of European subsidies to farmers this year. The penalty, estimated at between £500,000 and £700,000, relates to delays to 2016 Common Agricultural Policy.
The figure is on top of potential financial penalties of around £5 million as a result of late payments in 2015 after delays caused by the introduction of a new £178 million IT system. A total of 90.4 per cent of payments due to farmers were paid by the June deadline, with the European Commission rejecting a request from Scottish ministers for an extension to the payment window.
Even worse, the Scottish Government could also face separate EC financial penalties, known as disallowance, if weaknesses in the administration and control of CAP payments are identified. A recent assessment from Audit Scotland warned the figure for this could be as high as a massive £60 million.
To add insult to injury, the SNP has announced cuts worth tens of millions of pounds for projects aimed at helping Scotland’s farming communities.
In a recent written statement to the Scottish Parliament, rural affairs secretary Fergus Ewing said he was slashing support for less favourable areas by £40 million, with a further £42 million being removed from climate change schemes.
Along with the SNP’s aforementioned mishandling of hundreds of millions of pounds in Common Agricultural Policy payments due to a botched IT system, this makes for a double hammer blow for our farmers, crofters and the wider economy in rural Scotland.
Most shocking of all is that as part of the revision, the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme will have money reduced from £459 million to £419 million. That’s money which supports businesses in areas of the country which are harder to farm successfully, particularly in remote areas.
Due to a mixture of incompetence and indifference, we in rural Scotland are having our economy starved by an urban, central belt and separatism obsessed Scottish Government. Sir,
Joe Wilson’s justified praise (The Oban Times, September 21) of I&H Brown’s well-managed roundabout construction is timely and serves to remind us of the 30th anniversary of the publication of Trunk Road Orders for the proposed realignment of the A82 from the old Fort roundabout to the Fort William Golf Club and to reflect on how we got to the current situation.
Thirty years ago, prior to devolution and the existence of Transport Scotland, BEAR and the like, Highland Regional Council, along with other regional councils, was the agent of the Scottish Development Department (SDD) for management of the trunk roads in its area.
On September 28, 1987, the notice heralding the Trunk Road Orders was published for the route which would have extended from An Aird, round Inverlochy, crossing the A82 by flyover at the Tailrace and continuing through Jewson’s yard, then council-owned, parallel to the railway, to join the existing A82 close to the golf club. The A830 would be extended to join the new road at a roundabout south of the distillery.
While local traffic would still be able to use the existing A82 to access premises on the North Road, the loss of passing tourist trade was a matter of concern to the owners of the Milton (now Ben Nevis) Hotel who persuaded the Fort William Chamber of Commerce and Lochaber District Council to oppose the regional council’s proposal at a public local inquiry, jointly financing the considerable cost of a QC to do so.
These parties were successful in blocking the proposed A82 realignment and the Caol link road was offered as an alternative at that time. Consequently, the entire project was stopped and, since then, the political logjam of the A82 realignment versus the Caol link road has presented a convenient local dilemma to the benefit of parties furth of Lochaber who had few qualms in diverting trunk road funds to the A96, A9 and the like.
Since 1996, the Highland Council has safeguarded both routes in its various local plans but under the current draft revision of the West Plan indicated that it intended to drop the safeguard on the A82 realignment since it wouldn’t open up any development land; of course it wouldn’t, since that’s not the function of a trunk road.
Among others, I objected and I am pleased that the matter has now been held over awaiting a roads review called a STAG appraisal which has been the subject of earlier columns in this newspaper.
Readers will also be interested to learn that the original improvement scheme for the A82 Glen Nevis junction that was recommended to the Scottish Development Department in the late seventies was for a right-turning lane which would have retained the priority for the A82 in both directions.
Intervention by the then under-construction woollen mill meant that the SDD stipulated a mini roundabout, much in vogue at that time, thus allowing the woollen mill traffic the same priority as the A82, which was far from logical.
Delay on the A82 is a trunk road problem for Transport Scotland to deal with and the chance of an Inverness-centred Highland Council financing a Caol link road to solve a separate issue is nil and remains a distraction.
As divisional road engineer with the regional council at the time, I find this a pretty gloomy anniversary; things could have been very much different. Thirty years on, I still believe the proposed A82 realignment, or a revised version of same, presents the right way forward.
The 1987 estimated cost of £7.6 million was surely considerably less than the cumulative damage to business and community in recent years alone. We need local leadership from the Highland Council and Chamber of Commerce to put pressure on the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland to get us back to where we were 30 years ago and have some solution to look forward to.
Campervans bring needed revenue
Sir,
As a campervan owner for the past 24 years I have watched the increasing number of campervans and motorhomes on our roads.
It is surely up to local authorities to cater for the increasing numbers and make facilities available. These vehicles bring much-needed trade into the area and most people who own a campervan or motorhome are responsible people it’s the few who spoil it.
Could local authorities, in this case Argyll and Bute, not follow the example set my our continental neighbours and provide ‘aires du service’? This would provide a chemical disposal and grey water facility and a fresh water tap for a nominal fee. There are car parks lying empty at night which could be utilised for this, with a limit of a 12- or 24-hour stay for, say, £5 per night. This could be earning the council much-needed revenue and hopefully stop unpleasant dumping of waste.