Sir, I was amazed when the Labour MP Joan Walley, who chairs the Westminster environment audit committee, whilst talking about shale gas production, recently stated: “We cannot allow Britain’s national parks and areas of outstanding beauty to be developed into oil and gas fields.”
This appears to be the “head in the sand” attitude of most of the supposed political parties.
May I direct Ms Walley to study the Wytch farm oil field in Dorset. This field is the largest onshore oil field in Europe and has about 100 oil wells scattered about Poole Harbour and the Isle of Purbeck (areas of outstanding beauty and a national park).
The field has been in operation since 1973 with no environmental problems, Sandbank in Poole harbour has the dearest property prices outside London.
May I also point out to Ms Walley the appalling visual and actual vandalism that is taking place by installing thousands of wind turbines in Scotland’s national parks and areas of outstanding beauty.
The worst is the Stronelairg windfarm which not only will be above the beautiful Loch Ness but will destroy hundreds of acres of natural peat bog to install the access roads, (peat bogs are an endangered environment).
George O’Brien. Guerdon cottage, School Green, Anstruther.
Time to fix our precious NHS
Sir, The reaction of a number of SNP supporters to a visit by Shadow Health Secretary Jenny Marra MSP and I to Glenwood Health Centre in Glenrothes recently speaks volumes about their priorities. They became very excited about a picture of us beside the only sign to the new health centre. In fact, the real issue is the crisis in our NHS.
Jenny Marra and I had just spent an hour in the health centre speaking to excellent NHS staff about the problems in our health service. Among other issues, they raised short-staffing as a major problem in Fife. This corresponds exactly with what I hear from local people on the doorstep week in, week out.
In the Glenrothes and Central Fife constituency alone, we estimate that at least 1072 people waited more than four hours for treatment in Accident and Emergency last year.
People in A&E are often in pain, frightened and distressed and it is unacceptable that they are being forced to endure this.
A friend being treated in Victoria Hospital last weekend was told that the hospital had “run out of blankets”. It’s time that the SNP Scottish Government starting acting to fix our precious NHS.
Melanie Ward. Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Glenrothes and Central Fife.
Tantamount to state censorship
Sir, I write to express my concern regarding the reports of students being fined at St Andrews for displaying sandwich boards with the words F*** the Poor thereon.
My concern is not with the word used, rather with the lazy law enforcement on the part of Police Scotland which is tantamount to state censorship.
It is right that you reported the word “offensive” in quotes, as the police, by issuing a fixed penalty ticket have failed to properly investigate the alleged offence in order to prove intent. It is easily inferred from your report that offence was taken, but not intended.
The intimidatory use of those fixed penalty tickets negates the need for witnesses to stand up in court and state why they were offended, relying instead on it being accepted that some alleged innate quality in a word is to be held as always offensive.
The trouble with allowing police to act as the complainers by issuing fixed penalty tickets in criminal allegations is that their evidence is never tested and we are put in aposition where the piecemeal erosion of our liberty of expression continues.
John Gordon. 1 North Street, Glenrothes.
Just making a political point
Sir, It is almost embarrassingly easy to counter Dr Jonathan O’Riordan’s argument pro-Gaelic subsidies (February 12). He argues that speakers of various foreign languages are catered for in Fife and Tayside hospitals with translation services, while Gaelic speakers are not.
The answer is simple it is almost certain that 100% of Gaels speak English, the most influential language in the world. Why provide a service for which there is no need?
I suspect Dr O’Riordan, bright enough to have some kind of doctorate, knows this. He is making a political point, parity for Gaelic with English and all that, which is, of course, totally absurd.
Crawford Mackie. 78 Loughborough Road, Kirkcaldy.
Waiting for a connection
Sir, The completion of track laying for the Border railway is a significant and welcome milestone few could have imagined a decade ago. When services commence, we understand passengers should be able to travel on the same train service from Tweedbank via Newcraighall and Waverley to Thornton-Glenrothes at the end of the Fife Circle.
Yet here in coastal Fife, a potential catchment of 50,000 people only five miles further up the track to Leven is still waiting for the same “once in a generation” opportunity. The track is fully intact, with the first mile already carrying freight, but currently mothballed under Network Rail ownership.
The estimate of £76 million investment required to reinstate services is around one-quarter of the capital cost of the Borders line. If the “rail revolution” infrastructure Minister Keith Brown has spoken of is truly under way, it must connect major unserved areas such as Levenmouth to the national network.
(Dr) Allen Armstrong, Secretary, Levenmouth Rail Campaign, Buckhaven.