Vulnerable being left behind in Covid vaccine roll-out

Sir, – Saturday’s Courier showed a stream of people in their sixties receiving Covid vaccinations at Caird Hall.

Great, except thousands of over-70s are still waiting for theirs. As a person in my 70s I am one of those who feel let down by the broken promises of the Scottish Government.

While I wait to be contacted, my younger sisters, both in their 60s, received their jabs at the weekend. One lives in Angus, the other in Dundee.

When I contacted my GP surgery I was told they are struggling to vaccinate those between 75 and 79 as they have insufficient supplies.

They were unable to give me any idea of when I might receive my vaccination.

So, what has gone wrong?

Is it the case that, in an attempt to ramp up numbers, the government has diverted supplies to these large centres, leaving GP practices short?

And if so, why not ensure these mass vaccination centres begin with those over 70?

Most of us are perfectly fit and able to travel. But, because of our age, we are vulnerable.

While we wait, some of us will inevitably catch the virus and some will die.

The programme is a shambolic example of mismanagement and makes a mockery of the Scottish Government’s assertion they are following the recommendations of the JCVI. Valerie Wright. Panmure Terrace, Broughty Ferry.

“The subject of pre-fabricated house building continues to attract interest and recollections in the Craigie Column,” observes a Montrose reader.

He says: “The phrase ‘building in one week’ caught my attention and brought to mind the enterprise of a local company in the mid 1920s which had an entirely different start up, having been spun off from the Coaster Construction Company shipyard located on Rossie Island.

“In an attempt to keep men employed and maintain facilities, the two partners in the business set up a construction company under the name Allied Builders Ltd. This plan was to build pre-fabricated housing using large standard-sized concrete blocks mounted atop and others side by side with corrugated flanges using steel bolts to secure

them together. The yard built a small barge to extract sand and gravel from Montrose Basin for the block-making.

“Three, four and five-apartment bungalows were advertised, priced at £239, £329 and £379 respectively, with two variants at each price level. Foundations, water and drainage were extra.

“In order to make a publicity ‘splash’, the first four-room bungalow was built in six days. The concrete block manufacturing, however, ceased by late 1927. The prefabricated idea was not generally accepted until almost three decades later after the end of the Second World War.

“The story, though, had started in the closing days of the Great War when in November 1918, the following news item appeared in a local newspaper: ‘On Friday, a large piece of land on the east side of Rossie Island Road consisting of an area of 13 acres, 3 roods and 24 poles was exposed for sale for an annual feu duty or ground rent when it was purchased by Mr W D McLaren.’ This was the original move to acquire the site of the Coaster Construction Company Limited shipyard.

“Over the next few years, the company built a series of ships of different designs for owners as far distant as the Caribbean,

Canada, Australia and New Zealand including converting several former Royal Navy warships. Unfortunately, a serious downturn in the market followed in the mid 1920s causing new orders to dry up.

“The management endeavoured to diversify, firstly into steel fabrication and assembly, building two bridges one at Millden, in Glenesk, and the other at Edzell Golf Course. The pre-fabricated house building enterprise followed with a number of the bungalows still to be seen, mainly in Montrose.”