Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir,-Perth and Kinross Council has embarked on a project to halve the amount of waste from construction demolition and excavation.
It becomes only the second council in Scotland to sign up to the national Halving Waste to Landfill Commitment (July 26).
This project will entail the construction of a waste transfer station building at Crieff, a new access road, recycling bays and points, along with associated drainage, lighting, electrical and fencing works.
All this at a time when our council is so short of cash that it has had to cut back in many spheres, including road repair.
Would somebody tell me just exactly what is supposed to be wrong with landfill? The EU is so determined to cut landfill down to the minimum that councils are charged landfill tax.
Landfill used to be the normal way to dispose of waste. Dundee had its coup which recovered many acres of land from the Tay. The Dutch were held up as an example of good practice with their filling in of vast areas.
We have miles of coastline falling into the sea, with houses, farms and whole villages being lost, because sea walls are not being maintained.
Would it not be possible to send our waste to landfill along threatened coasts after solid sea walls have first been constructed then the waste material filled in behind?
The EU’s politically correct ideology seems to have cast a spell over us all, negating common sense and costing us all dear, while the Chinese and other Asian nations carry on under-cutting our industries unencumbered by our daft green policies.
George K. McMillan.5 Mount Tabor Avenue,Perth.
Cannon upset the golfers
Sir.-Barry Buddon has had an even longer history as a busy military training ground than Captain Ian MacRae suggests (July 28).
The area was purchased by the War Department in 1891-93, but it had already been in regular use for training Volunteers since the 1860s. In 1912, the Dundee naturalist James B. Corr wrote: “During a considerable part of the year, instead of the trilling cry of the curlew, and the shrill peewit of the lapwing, we hear the crack of the rifle and the boom of cannon.”
A few years earlier there were complaints that the use of a training battery near the mouth of the Barry Burn by the Royal Naval Reserve “somewhat interferes with golf.”
Carnoustie residents have had nearly 150 years to adjust to the noise from the firing ranges at least they are now seldom troubled by booming cannon.
Colin McLeod. 65 Johnston Avenue, Dundee.
Big neighbour already here
Sir,-In stating (July 27) that: “Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Denmark are all normal countries with small populations”, and that, “none of them is clamouring to be governed by a big neighbour”, Jim McGugan may need to check his facts. Ireland, Denmark and Finland all clamoured to be in, and are already governed by, a big neighbour the EU.
Iceland is already heavily integrated into the EU market and applied to join the European Union on July 16, 2009. Negotiations formally began last month.
However, according to a very recent poll produced by Capacent Gallup for the Icelandic No movement, the majority of Icelanders want to withdraw Iceland’s application to join the European Union.
Until we see the wording of the referendum on a future “independent” Scotland, all such argument and mere assumptions as contained in Jim McGugan’s letter are meaningless, as is the referendum itself.
We in Scotland, as part of the UK, are already in the EU, an arrangement which the SNP Scottish Government wish to see continue.
Neil McKinnon.Tulchan Gardens,Glenalmond.
Army sent to wrong base
Sir,-After all the carry on about supposedly cutting defence costs by scrapping the RAF at Leuchars, I think these people do not live in the real world.
Dr Liam Fox and the faceless grey men in that distant galaxy called Whitehall are just bean counters. Do they not realise the cost of re furbishing the runway at Leuchars, updating the base for Typhoons and installation of simulators, etc., will now be written off?
And then there are the conversions needed for the arrival of the Army.
Why did they not base Army units at Lossiemouth alongside the new Army base at Kinloss, thereby not wasting money already invested at Leuchars, which will now have to be spent again at Lossiemouth?
Tornado GR 4s could have come down to be based at Leuchars.
This would have strengthened and complemented the Typhoon Quick Reaction Alert, and helped retain this strategically positioned Fife base.
Bradley Borland.Beechwood, Kinfauns.
Get involved: to have your say on these or any other topics, email your letter to letters@thecourier.co.uk or send to Letters Editor, The Courier, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL.