Let’s be brave enough to take the risk and overhaul our voting system

Sir, – It was good to read the story in The Press and Journal about Attic deciding to relocate to Union Street. Just occasionally, you have to be brave enough to do something different.

Those of us up in Buchan were rewarded on February 29 when Peterhead Academy’s Higher travel and tourism class teachers had faith, in conjunction with Visit Aberdeenshire, to get their pupils to organise Taste of Buchan 2024 - with adult guidance, obviously.

Sometimes, you have to take a calculated risk.

In standing for the Scottish Youth Parliament in the Banff and Buchan coast constituency, my eldest daughter Bethany was obviously taking a risk – in any election, there is always the risk you won’t be elected.

Similarly, Peterhead Community Council members obviously believe that if you are good enough, you are old enough, because it was my pleasure to attend a meeting on Monday night, during which Bethany was introduced to the community councillors, having taken up the offer to apply.

If you want to truly represent your community, then you have to be willing to engage with all sections of it. Hopefully, the council will see the benefits of taking that risk.

Calculated risk-taking is part of life and, for me, we need to take the calculated risk of changing the voting system to STV (Single Transferable Vote) as used in local council and Scottish Youth Parliament elections.

I understand it might not give you the supposedly “stable governments” of the past, but it’s worth the risk, in my opinion.

I also believe that too often, in reality those so-called stable governments are weak.

The first past the post system may be simple for folk to understand but it does not properly represent all of Scotland with its various strands of opinion.

Hopefully, we will eventually realise that cosy consensus and the ping-pong of Conservative and Labour governments no longer works for country, and we’ll be brave enough to change things up a bit. Peter Ovenstone, Peterhead.

The risk Attic took of moving to Union Street is paying off. Picture by Kenny Elrick.