YOUR VIEWS: Stewardship of the land matters more than owner
Charlie Whelan complains that Anders Povlsen, the Danish landowner owning the Glenfeshie Estate, has nothing to say about proposals to limit land ownership.
As a foreigner, he probably considers it best to keep out of Scottish politics.
If he had made a submission, would your correspondent have been any less critical?
Mr Whelan then goes on to bemoan the concentration of land ownership in Scotland. Does it matter who owns the land? Surely what matters is how well that land is stewarded.
It is not as if large landowners are making huge — if any — profits at the public’s expense.
Look at the loss of £4m recently reported by Mr Povlsen’s Scottish estate owning company, to say nothing of the additional £33m he is apparently investing in his rewilding and other projects.
Your correspondent continues by advocating the public acquisition of large estates.
Does Mr Whelan really think that estates such as Alvie, Glenfeshie and Rothiemurchus, which already offer very open access and a growing number of well run facilities, would be better managed under Cairngorms National Park Authority, Highland Council or Scottish Government ownership?
They would become much less attractive destinations and financial albatrosses in very short order.
Those readers who know the area, will share your correspondent’s aspiration for an upper Feshie bridge restoration.
Given Mr Povlsen’s record of generosity to local causes and the way he has encouraged public access in the past, I would be surprised if he would not want to contribute something to the project if asked.
Angus Tulloch
Kingussie.
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‘A9 dual pretence a public betrayal’
It was indeed a red letter day reading Grant Frazer’s letter and actually agreeing with part of it, when he criticised the insensitive words chosen by Bill Lobhan on the SNP A9 failures.
However Grant’s attempt to downplay the situation on the SNP A9 culpability are an insult to anyone with a modicum of objectivity.
If like me you attended the road consultations and spoke to officials several years ago, before Covid, it was clear that there was next to no prospect of meeting the 2025 deadline.
The only real surprise is just how little progress has been achieved recently so maybe we have the Greens to thank for that.
Successive SNP transport ministers who maintained the pretence of being on track, including the current first minister, must have lied about it because I have worked for ministers in the civil service and it is just not credible they did not know the true position.
Like thousands of increasingly vocal Highlanders, including many supporters of Independence like me, I feel betrayed. If I cannot trust the SNP with a road, why would I trust them with a country?
Ian Gibson
An Rath Liath
Newtonmore.
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Going round in circles on the A9
Roundabouts would slow things down a little bit. Roundabouts would let motorists turn right safely.
Roundabouts could encourage motorists to visit communities. Roundabouts would help make motorists aware of whether they are on a single or dual carriage section.
Roundabouts could be in place quickly. Roundabouts would be much cheaper.
This is a roundabout way of suggesting that there are more urgent capital spending priorities than dualling the A9.
Dick Webster
Campbell Crescent
Kingussie.
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Turn off the lights
The UK and Scottish governments are convinced that wind generated electricity is the way to reach net zero.
In the last 12 months in the UK wind supplied 29.6 per cent and solar 4.7 per cent of our electricity whereas gas supplied 39.1 per cent and nuclear 15.3 per cent.
So if the present 11,500 UK wind turbines could only supply 29.6 per cent of UK electricity in the last 12 months then another 26,000 are needed once the government, under the spell of the green zealots and the anti-nuclear brigade, bans gas and nuclear?
Where will we put them and when the wind does not blow where will the UK get its electricity?
Clark Cross
Springfield Road
Linlithgow.
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Another to jump onto Green A9 bandwagon
So Angus Tulloch’s letter, in last week’s Strathy, suggested that a high speed rail link would be better for the environment and for society, than dualling the A9.
Really? As the owner of a luxurious second home and a luxury holiday rental business here in Badenoch, Mr Tulloch, and his wealthy clients, no doubt make very regular use of the A9, and most probably in large, fuel-guzzling vehicles with ‘all the pollution this would entail’.
He also seems oblivious to the fact that they are all also ‘clogging up’ the once quiet country roads around here – totally ironic given he stated in his letter that ‘Central Belt congestion would also benefit from fewer Highland motorists’!
If he is really so interested in societal benefits, perhaps he could have built affordable, long-term rental properties to help solve the local housing crisis, instead of luxury rental properties that only a fortunate few can enjoy.
Also, the maintenance of such luxuries as his nine-hole golf course, croquet lawn, tennis court and hot tub cannot be very environmentally friendly, given the amount of water and chemicals that are no doubt required to keep them in tip-top condition.
Mr Tulloch seems to have jumped on the centralist, ‘Green’ bandwagon, with the urbanites dictating to the rural population what they should be doing to save the planet.
Or maybe as an Independence supporter, he is just having a dig at SNP dissenter Fergus Ewing?
Name and address supplied
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Where were police after Ralia accident?
I was stuck in the mess of cars and lorries going both ways on a mainly single track road alongside the closed A9 last Thursday.
It took over an hour to move less than quarter of mile and the situation was made worse by no police on duty.
Junctions were not manned to ensure priority flows were achieved.
We decided to head to Spean Bridge and up by the Caledonian Canal.
This route took double the time but at least we could stop for the loo, walk the dog and get some food.
This was a disgraceful show of policing (or lack of) in the 21st Century.
We even saw two police four by four vehicles heading towards the Perth direction at a time they were needed to sort this mess.
Paul Wilson
Nairn.
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Mother Nature has replenished oil and gas in record time...
Mother Nature is indeed incredible as events earlier this week regarding the North Sea have shown.
In 2014 in the run up to the independence referendum, we were warned by the Better Together campaign that there was little, if any, offshore oil and gas production left.
A mere nine years later and it is announced that ‘hundreds of new oil and gas licenses’ are being awarded by the Tory UK Government to exploit a resource that was apparently exhausted.
It is truly remarkable and indeed a modern miracle in that in less than a decade Mother Nature has turned a depleted resource into one which is now at the forefront of securing the UK’s energy future.
Alex Orr
Marchmont Road
Edinburgh.
