Sir, – Opportunities for Perth City Hall (“Hall tipped to draw crowds”, The Courier, March 8) are really opening up, including all kinds of cultural shows and, as you report, the potential to attract a possible extra 160,000 visitors yearly.
All that is as optimistic a prospect as the defunct Civic Square suggestion was a non-starter.
The hall is primarily a community centre for city and county, but we have three proposals for further enhancement of the revived hall’s facilities.
Firstly, transfer the Tourist Information Centre to the city hall, expanding its scope to include, for example, exhibitions of city and Perthshire events and history and geography.
Secondly, retain the sprung floor for dancing, very popular in times past.
Finally, incorporate a minor hall with space for, say, 100-300 people at smaller concerts, for which the Perth Concert Hall is too big.
Exhibitions of local artists’ work should also be considered, and space for local society meetings could add to the hall’s interest and potential applications.
As in former times, NBTS blood donation sessions should be catered for.
No doubt others will put forward additional ideas, since optimising our city hall’s revival is too good an opportunity to miss, both in terms of new facilities and for the tourism and income-boosting potential.
Isabel and Charles Wardrop.
Viewlands Rd West,
Perth.
Dunfermline gets short shrift
Sir, – Hugh Hall, principal of Fife College, has written to members of the college staff regarding the decision by the Scottish Government not to fund the new college campus.
Prior to the last election we were promised a new state-of-the-art college campus.
At the very same time, Falkirk was promised the same. Falkirk’s college campus will go ahead yet here in Dunfermline they have reneged on that promise. I think this is disgraceful. Do we in Dunfermline come second in line to Falkirk?
I have asked questions of our MSP, Shirley-Anne Somerville, and our MP, Douglas Chapman, but have yet to receive a reply.
Yet again Dunfermline is being put at a disadvantage due to the Scottish Government’s betrayals. We in Dunfermline deserve better than what we are getting – which is nothing.
The Scottish Government is still not going to assist in funding a new high school, either.
This, together with the college campus, is in my view disgraceful.
Cllr Garry Haldane.
Scottish Labour,
Dunfermline Central.
Not democracy, it’s coercion
Sir, – Rather a lot has been made of the allegation that one third of yes voters opted to leave the EU.
I have my doubts but if we accept that at face value, it follows that more than 60% of no voters must have voted to remain, in order to result in the overwhelming 62/38 split.
Even “the parcel of rogues” who signed up for the Treaty of Union, did so on the basis of an equal partnership, but here we have the clearly expressed wishes of Scotland, expressly ignored.
Scottish MPs also voted forcibly against the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that hasn’t stopped Baghdad and Kabul becoming the most dangerous cities in the world today.
A majority of Scots would dearly love to see the obscenity of Trident removed from our waters but, again, we will be ignored.
Those Tories negotiating Brexit don’t seem to know where they are with the negotiations, where they have been with the negotiations or even where they want to go with the negotiations.
We are led by a Prime Minister who cannot organise a Cabinet reshuffle, but has her incompetent thumb itching on the nuclear button, and riding shotgun is a Foreign Secretary who gives buffoonery a bad name.
The great hope of the Tories, currently ensconced in Holyrood, is full of sound and fury but her policy folder would pass for a double blank domino.
This is not democracy but simple coercion, at a level unequalled since Al Capone.
Joseph G Miller.
Gardeners Street,
Dunfermline.
Gibraltar the real problem
Sir, – Much has been said about the UK’s relationship with Ireland after Brexit, but Gibraltar seems to have fallen by the wayside.
The Gibraltar issue represents an even bigger problem for a smooth Brexit or transition deal than Northern Ireland does, and let us not forget some 96% of Gibraltarians voted to Remain in 2016.
The Irish border problem was a condition of the Brexit divorce settlement and the start of talks on post-Brexit trade. Not so with Gibraltar.
A hard Brexit would mean a hard border between Gibraltar and Spain. Almost everything Gibraltar needs relies, to an extent, on Spanish cooperation.
Placing Gibraltar outside the customs union and single market and adding onerous border controls would put it under great hardship. Also, the EU has given Spain a formal veto over Brexit if Madrid is not happy with the Gibraltar dimensions of a Brexit deal.
The obvious answer is to give Gibraltar membership of the customs union and single market by special protocol.
Other EU countries with dependencies, including some French territories in the Caribbean, have bespoke arrangements. Gibraltar could easily be treated much like other EU microstates such as Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City and Andorra.
But to get even that, Theresa May needs Spain to lift its veto and that would mean offering something to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, maybe a concession on sovereignty or governance.
So, while all eyes are on Northern Ireland, it is Gibraltar which will prove an even greater conundrum for the UK Government.
Alex Orr.
Leamington Terrace,
Edinburgh.
