Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, – Until now every response to the open meeting on April 26 to which Mr M Duncan refers (May 24), when I outlined Perth City Market Trust’s proposals for the City Hall, has been highly favourable. He had every opportunity afterwards to ask me questions privately, as many others did but he chose to preserve his ignorance and ill-will.
He insists that the City Hall is ”like the renowned parrot deceased”, so what does he propose? Our scheme for a market hall which will become Scotland’s national food market is the only viable solution to revitalise not just this great building but the entire city centre.
Comparing Perth’s population with Adelaide’s and Belfast’s he overlooks what matters, which is that Scotland’s population is far greater than Northern Ireland’s or South Australia’s. John Swinney recently pointed out that barely 10% of Perthshire’s consumer spending power is actually spent in our city centre.
This means that, allowing for what is diverted to online purchasing and payments for domestic services, much more than 50% of consumer spending is consumed by out-of-town supermarkets and retail parks or exported to Dundee, Stirling, Dunfermline, Inverness, Edinburgh, etc.
Attracting a fraction of that to Scotland’s first food market hall will transform the city centre’s retail turnover and by vastly expanding Perth’s catchment area as a shopping destination immensely benefit the High Street and St John’s Centre too.
To expect me to disclose to a public meeting before we have had an opportunity of making a presentation to the new council’s officers confidential details of our funding arrangements and business plan, is simply daft. I disclosed all I properly could.
If the likes of Mr Duncan have their way it is not just the City Hall that will be deceased it is Perth’s city centre.
Vivian Linacre.21 Marshall Place,Perth.
Celebrating all things that are British
Sir, – As a committed nationalist I am, of course, deluded and paranoid but it seems to me that lately the BBC, or as we prefer to call it the Biased Broadcasting Corporation, has been producing an absolute slew of programmes celebrating all things British, whether a history of the empire or the monarchy (for British here read English) or anything else that can show being British as the natural order of things.
Could this have anything to do with a forthcoming referendum?
We are used to the anti-Scottish spin of the BBC but even given the almost universal opposition of all media to independence, that the national broadcaster is so prejudiced is outrageous.
John Henderson.Roebrek, Linross,Glamis.
Basic chemistry tells us this
Sir, – Re global warming, carbon emissions and other effects of hydrocarbon usage. I’m totally fed up with a lack of common sense in the outcomes of all of us using hydrocarbons. Every ”expert” seems to have an agenda of his own with no recognition of the facts.
I am no expert but common sense and schoolboy chemistry tells us that: elements cannot be destroyed or created, they just change into different compounds; for every litre or kg of hydrocarbon we burn (i.e. mix with oxygen) we produce carbon gases and water. I think for every litre of fuel a car consumes it produces similar volumes of water.
Therefore, the obvious outcome is that we are transferring vast amounts water and carbon gases from below ground into our atmosphere.
To contemplate re-burying carbon in those quantities is idiotic and physically impossible. Has nobody considered the effect of transferring hydrogen from below the Earth’s crust into water?
Again the layman would infer that water concentrations above the Earth’s crust must be increasing and oxygen is being tied up which was previously in the atmosphere.
On a positive note, wood used for heat can only produce the amount of carbon it extracted from the atmosphere as it grew and is likely to consume when burning similar amounts of oxygen that it produced while growing.
Hopefully someone in power will use common sense but it is quite clear we can’t continue to burn hydrocarbons from below the Earth’s crust without huge effects in our atmosphere.
William CL Halley.West Lochlane,by Crieff.
Is clash really necessary?
Sir, – I was disappointed to read about the forthcoming ”Ferry Music Fest … being held at the same time as the Dundee Blues Bonanza”.
The Blues Bonanza has been a great success story on the Dundee cultural calendar, bringing bands from all over the world and thousands of visitors to the city.
Why have the Ferry publicans decided to have their music festival on the same weekend when they could have chosen any one of the other 51 weekends in the year?
Is it perhaps something to do with the fact that ”we did want to become part of that a few years ago and the organisers turned us down”?
It all seems a bit petty to me.
Les Mackay.5 Carmichael Gardens,Dundee.
Just monitoring
Sir, – For clarification, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is not leading on the trial reintroduction of beavers at Knapdale in Argyll (Warning of beaver damage, May 17).
The Scottish Beaver Trial is run by the Scottish Wildlife Trust and the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, hosted by Forestry Commission Scotland.
SNH’s role is to coordinate the independent scientific monitoring of the trial.
Nick Halfhide.Head of Operations,Scottish Natural Heritage.
Make them pay
Sir, – When I read the article on the front page of The Courier (May 24) regarding child criminals being detected, I was surprised to read that although parents were held responsible for their children, there was no mention of those same parents being required to pay compensation for any criminality perpetrated by their offspring.
Why not?
June Reid.12 Findhorn Street,Dundee.
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. Letters should be accompanied by an address and a daytime telephone number.