Unspoiled Kintyre beauty is in danger

Sir, World renowned artist William McTaggart did a series of paintings in what he called Gauldrons Bay, and these included its entirety from the green raised beach of Uisaed to the headland past the twisted rocks of the Galdrings.

Mr McTaggart, who wrote to you last week, may share his name but clearly not his sense of the uniqueness of our wonderful coastline.

He may think that the industrialisation of our finite and beautiful bays is ‘a small price to pay’ for jobs, but we live in this remote place because of the quality of life brought by our wild surroundings and thousands visit here (bringing in way more money than aquaculture) because of its unspoiled beauty.

It would be a betrayal of our responsibility to the present and future community and to the flora and fauna that we share this special place with to hand it over so unquestioningly to multinational Marine Harvest for its huge development. Particularly so when there are brownfield coastal sites that it has not even seriously looked at and which could be used with a bit more effort – thus preserving the Gauldrons while still bringing in jobs.

It is ironic that you had an article in the same edition about the loss of habitat (marshy unimproved grasslands) for Lapwings when this is exactly the habitat that MH will be concreting over if the ‘small price to payers’ surrender it so readily to companies that cannot be bothered to be socially and environmentally responsible enough to build in appropriate places.

The current development is less than half the size of that proposed and will take up much of the green space in front of the existing sprawl. Bob Miller, Sound of Kintyre.