Hydro schemes help people who live in glens survive
In response to the letters in last week’s Oban Times against the Glen Etive hydro schemes, I should like to make the following reply.
I am a member of the Glencoe and Glen Etive Community Council as well as chairwoman of the Glen Coe and Glen Etive Community Company. My husband’s family has been here in Glencoe since 1936 and he went to school in Glencoe Village.
The remit of the community council is to represent the small communities who live in these two glens and I should like to take this opportunity to respond – on my own behalf – to the objections to the hydro schemes planned in Glen Etive raised by people and groups who claim to have a ‘vested interest’ in our glens.
I would like them to consider the people who actually live and work here – all year round.
We do not have the luxury of the services that people who live in urban areas have. The community benefit which these schemes generate may enable us to invest in a few of the things that people who do not live in remote glens take for granted as their right.
We are happy that our glens are seen as beautiful (as indeed they are) and I understand that people love coming here to walk, climb and camp to get away from the noise and stress of urban living.
However, I would ask them to reflect on who comes to their rescue when they get into difficulties on our hills? It is the local mountain rescue team manned by local volunteers – unpaid – who turn out day or night in all weathers to help.
Who is left to clear up the rubbish when the campers and other visitors leave? There are no public toilets in Glen Etive and off the road the glen is littered with small piles of toilet paper covering up their messes, as well as a pile of litter.
The people who live here do the clearing up because they love their glen and hate to see the mess that is left. The council has no money and the NTS, which owns part of Glen Etive, has no spare manpower.
Our mountains and glens should not be regarded only as playgrounds for urban population – theirs to treat as they like. We who live here love our glens and would never support any scheme that will ruin our home environment.
Indeed, we have agreed with the developer of the schemes in Glen Etive that each family who lives in the glen will adopt one of the hydro schemes, monitor the installation and reinstatement of the ground, and report on the progress to the developer and the community council. This is best done by people who live here all year.
VisitScotland promotes the Highlands vigorously with pretty pictures and flowery words and tourists flock to our ‘wild lands’. But our long single-track roads cannot cope with the traffic. The passing places are seen as convenient places to park and in the summer are mostly full with campervans making driving an obstacle course. The verges have been totally destroyed.
This is a problem – not just in Glen Coe and Glen Etive but in most of the remote areas in Scotland. Only this week it is reported that the population of Caithness has fallen by 21 per cent. If it becomes impossibly difficult to live in the remote areas of Scotland, more people will leave. Many of the younger men are already forced to work away from their families during the week, but they need to know that their children are schooled, their own parents can, if necessary, go into a local care home and that reasonable services are available for their families.
Do the people who object to progress in our glens really want these areas cleared of residents? Do they really want our tourists to come only as day trippers in buses with piped commentary? Because if no one lives here, that will be all that is left.
You need to rid yourselves of your 21-century