Strathearn ‘sold short’ by our local authority
Once again Perth and Kinross Council has sold Strathearn short.
As was reported in last week’s Herald, PKC is delaying the £28 million flood relief scheme for Comrie.
This is vital protection for residents and the rather lame excuse is “staffing”.
The department head appears to have refused to elaborate and even say when the project will commence, maybe not until the Autumn – if then.
Added to the work needed on the Shaky Bridge and the core path, further delayed, this is a sorry state of affairs.
I would hope the residents of Comrie would agree with me that the £26.5 million and associated staffing resource being spent on the City Halls for a new museum and art gallery – I know it’s for the
Stone of Destiny – would be better spent on making the residents of Comrie secure (and, if there is a bit left over, proper public toilets for Crieff).
People’s wellbeing over vanity projects for a Perthcentric minority.
And the City Halls should never have been allowed to deteriorate in the first place.
One day the senior staff at PKC and the councillors who should be holding them to account will realise they are only employed by PKC – they actually work for us!
Dr Roger I Cartwright, Turretbank Place, Crieff
‘Vital’ move over gas is overturned
Dear Editor
Imagine you are shivering in your cold home when you discover that there is treasure buried in your garden and it’s all yours.
You are overjoyed, at least until you discover that bureaucrats won’t let you dig it up.
Well, that is pretty much the position that Britain finds itself in, with the Oil and Gas Authority ordering Cuadrilla to permanently seal the two test wells it has drilled into Bowland shale gas formation under northern England.
According to the British Geological Survey there are 37.6 trillion cubic meters of gas in this rock formation.
Just 10 per cent of that gas would meet Britain’s gas needs for 50 years.
And the decision to forego the opportunity for cheap, plentiful, secure gas supplies wasn’t taken by the cabinet or debated in parliament, but in secret by faceless bureaucrats obsessed by the future warming of the planet and utterly indifferent to rising heating bills and soaring fuel poverty now.
Instead we will have to import this gas.
More carbon dioxide will be produced shipping fracked gas to us from abroad.
Russia leader Vladimir Putin’s ability to blackmail the west to ignore his warmongering and human rights abuses will be strengthened.
And all of this will mean our economy will be permanently weaker as we have to pay for all that foreign gas instead of using our own.
It is vital that the government overturns this lunatic decision by the Oil and Gas Authority.