Sir, – St Andrews Environmental Protection Association’s supporters have recently claimed that their attempts to block the new school building for Madras College, St Andrews, are victimless, denying that it’s costing us all millions of pounds.
If STEPAL had not launched their unwelcome, divisive and ill-fated legal action, the diggers would be on site right now building a brighter future for the pupils of St Andrews.
Instead, their costly challenge is set to cause two more years of unnecessary delay.
Inflation in the construction sector is currently over 7% a year. On the total school build cost of £40 million, that equates to £5.8m of additional costs.
That’s before you even take into account all the legal fees.
To look at it another way, the cost is £4,142 of wasted public money for every child at Madras College.
Nearly £6m of money that should be spent on frontline services, at a time when funding is desperately short.
STEPAL will attempt to claim that the delays are caused by some conspiracy of mismanagement that only they can see.
This is despite the fact that the public consultation, the Scottish Government, councillors of all parties and ultimately the judge in the Court of Session disagrees with them.
For STEPAL to claim these costs were caused by anyone other than them is like a school bully blaming someone for running into their fist.
At each of the numerous stages in this drawn-out process, the school blockers have crowed about their chances of success, telling their supporters that they have a sporting chance of blocking the school.
St Andrews Environmental Protection Trust even hinted to potential donors that they may get their cash back if legal action was successful.
At every single stage they have failed, throwing away their supporters’ money.
Who in their right mind would trust STEPAL’s judgment?
You can only wonder about the quality of advice they are receiving, and providing.
Chris Wallard. 23 Cant Crescent, St Andrews.
Put wealth in workers’ hands
Sir, – Right-wing economists argue that low-tax regimes put more financial power in business hands to enable the creation of more jobs and prosperity for everyone Sadly, that does not seem to happen in practice.
The people who are supposed to prove the low-tax benefit theory tend to save the money and indulge in personal investment rather than create the economy-boosting jobs envisaged by the economic theorists.
The result is the creation of an ever-widening gap between rich and poor.
Human beings are naturally greedy and are more likely to be selfish than altruistic so it is up to governments, as independent arbiters, to redistribute wealth by a fair taxation system as the greedy will never stop their selfish habits on a voluntary basis.
If there is any truth in the theory that financial incentives are needed to get the best out of people, the contracts currently applied to corporate bonus offers should be reversed to contain financial penalties for failure to do the job, rather than bonuses for doing what they should be doing in the first place.
Allan MacDougall. 37 Forth Park, Bridge of Allan.
Climate myth a money spinner
Sir, – Friends of the Earth have claimed that warming of the earth cannot be a natural phenomenon.
Geological records show us that the earth has been moving through a fluctuating cycle for many thousands of years.
The Roman Warm Period, lasting from 250 BCto 400 and then the Medieval Warm Period, 800 to 1400, were warmer than now.
Indeed currently retreating glaciers in Greenland are exposing the remnants of Viking farms.
It seems it once was truly a green land.
Between the two warm periods was the Dark Ice Age, and from 1350 to 1850, the Little Ice Age, where fairs on frozen rivers were a common event.
Since 1850 we have been moving into a modern warm period.
These fluctuations in temperature would have happened regardless of man.
This is, of course, not acceptable to those who would demonise carbon dioxide, a clean gas essential to life, so as to maintain the multi-billion pound climate change industry they have invented.
Bill McKenzie. 48 Fintry Place, Broughty Ferry.
Bankrupt wind philosophy
Sir, -The excessive economic and social costs of wind-driven renewable energy have been hidden by misleading claims on the supposed benefits.
Assume we require 10 units of electricity to supply Scotland with electrical power.
Conventional and nuclear power must be available to supply these 10 units of electricity 100% of the time. This is required due to the limitations of wind power. Weather conditions only allow turbines to work for 60% of the time.
The operational limitation of conventional/ nuclear power generation means that power stations can only reduce electrical generation to about four to five units.
This is the minimum conventional electrical generation can operate to and still be available to produce 10 units at short notice. Therefore, the most power we can use from wind generation is about five to six units.
The Scottish Government policy is to have wind generation capacity of 10 units, therefore, if they succeed in this policy, it will mean that not only will we be paying a high cost for the power we use, but, when wind conditions do allow power generation, we will need to pay approximately half the turbines not to generate electricity all of this time.
All the above is supposed to reduce CO2 but when conventional power generation is running at 50% power they actually produce more CO2 per unit of electricity generated.
All this is taking place against a global fall in gas prices and a projected worldwide oversupply of gas. This will result in low power generation costs worldwide.
Unfortunately this will not be the case in Scotland. For the next 15 to 20 years we will be locked by contract into probably the highest electrical power costs in the world, with the resultant devastation of our manufacturing industry jobs and a huge increase in domestic power poverty, Offshore wind electrical power will cost three times more than the present cost of electricity.
George O’Brien. Guerdon Cottage, School Green, Anstruther.
Economic disaster awaits
Sir, – In 2008 when he was First Minister, Alex Salmond boasted that Scotland had “the best CO2 reduction targets in the world”.
He committed Scotland to the Climate Change Act (Scotland) which no other country was foolish enough to do.
Fast forward to the year 2030 and imagine an SNP government boasting that they are the only country in the world to have achieved a “zero-carbon economy”.
There are 15,000 wind turbines dotted around the Scottish countryside, churning out mega-expensive electricity that Scottish people cannot afford and which England refuses to import following a declaration of English independence.
Claims that taxpayers in England were paying for Scotland’s wind turbine subsidies led to an English independence movement.
In the year 2030, England has forsaken renewables and turned to gas-fired power plants using cheap shale gas resulting in a booming economy, a huge manufacturing base and record foreign inward investment.
A zero-carbon economy means no economy since companies have fled Scotland, with their taxation contributions, to countries where fossil fuels generate cheaper electricity.
A figment of a fertile imagination?
Clark Cross. 138 Springfield Road, Linlithgow.
Let’s get down to some fracking
Sir, – The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint against the Greenpeace advertisement that claims fracking “won’t cut energy bills”.
This is yet another slap in the face for Greenpeace.
A survey commissioned by Greenpeace, but hidden in a footnote, showed that more people support fracking than oppose it.
The finding that 42% of people supported fracking while 35% opposed it, is particularly awkward for Greenpeace because it shows greater support for the shale-gas industry than even government surveys have suggested.
Let’s get fracking.
Dan Arnott. 1 St Brycedale Court, Kirkcaldy.
Atheists want balanced view
Sir, – Your correspondent, Gus Logan (May 7) presents a false view of how most atheists feel about religion in our schools.
We don’t want our belief system to be the only one taught.
Children should learn about all the major religions as well as about the secular humanist viewpoint.
They should have the opportunity to hear about and question all major belief systems.
If parents want emphasis on a particular worldview, it is up to them to pass that on at home.
A recently-published manifesto from the Humanist Society of Scotland states members’ belief that religious and moral education “should contain a non-religious, humanist perspective”.
It does not demand, nor even gently suggest, that the religious part of the subject should be dropped.
It asks only that the secular view should also be covered.
I certainly do not want to see children indoctrinated with Christian beliefs and made to attend church services, as I was at school, but learning about, and thus understanding, what other people believe is an important part of growing up to be part of a multicultural society.
Moira Symons. 17 Woodlands Gardens, Dundee.