Sir, – The torment shown in their different ways by Robert Brown and Gordon Blair over road safety hazards on the A92 ought to remind us about an important point (February 10).
It is the need for a project strategy along the trunk road similar to the £3 billion one in place to dual the A9 along its entire route from Perth to Inverness by 2025.
Although Fife Council has outlined an action plan for all the problems that lie between the Preston roundabout in Glenrothes up to Cross Keys junction in Freuchie and beyond to Ladybank, this is, as yet, nothing more than a glorified wish list.
The problems along the route will continue until the politicians who represent the area along it show a united approach.
They need to show the same political fervour for change that the MSPs from Perth to the Highlands have provided.
That was to tackle at last all the hazards along one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in the United Kingdom.
With elections to Holyrood pending, we might have expected the main political parties in Fife to have come up with a costed plan to modernise the A92.
Sadly there seems to have been little progress.
I hope Mr Brown is successful in getting a new flyover near the Balfarg junction; I wish Freuchie Community Council success in supporting Mr Blair over the junction in the village. In the end, though, these will be only cosmetic improvements until we have a much more detailed plan which at present our politicians seem unable to provide.
Bob Taylor. 24 Shiel Court, Glenrothes.
Dad’s Army film was a joy
Sir, – I do not agree with the letter from Mr Travers of Dunfermline (February 10) about Dad’s Army.
I went to see the film on Sunday and being an avid fan of the original series, I was a bit sceptical, but kept an open mind.
It was one of the best films I have seen recently.
The cast were well chosen and acted their parts brilliantly.
I laughed from the beginning to the end.
It was like a tonic on a dreary afternoon.
There was no gratuitous violence, sex scenes or bad language – a real gem – a good old, well-made British comedy.
Penny McCreadie. 12 Alford Gardens. West Ferry Park, Dundee.
Beaver control plan needed
Sir, – Jim Crumley again fails to see the larger picture in terms of wildlife management.
These large rodents may in some places have a role to play in the environment, but the evidence for net benefits is limited as yet; so, for example, the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) is supporting research into their effects on trout spawning streams.
But, with beavers now firmly part of the scene, such heavily emotive articles (February 9) are unhelpful as there are real needs to address over the cost of protecting valuable arable fields from beaver damage.
Beavers, and the results of their activity such as dams, must be manageable.
Many land managers in Scotland are responsible for managing local wildlife such as deer, so why not beavers?
It increasingly appears both here, and from evidence in Europe, that beavers can have an impact on economic activity such as farming.
It is surely irresponsible to release the species, which has been missing from our now heavily managed landscape for many years, and turn a blind eye to the consequences, leaving farmers to pick up the bill or worse be unable to act at all.
A plan for the adaptive management of this species, while under protection, is now needed.
Dr Adam Smith. Director, Scotland, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, Perth Airport.
Protecting Scotland’s trees
Sir, – There are two types of Beaver, the North American Beaver (castor Canadensis) and the Eurasian Beaver (castor fibre). The habitat for both is wilderness woodland on rivers and lakes.
The Eurasian beaver is a much larger but a little less destructive than the North American beaver.
Most of the wild beavers in Scotland were of the North American variety until 2009 when some of the Eurasian beaver were released in the south of Scotland (Knapdale Forest, I believe) and now have migrated to many other parts of Scotland.
The Eurasian or North American beaver was never native to Scotland.
Beavers are controlled (shot) in populated areas where they are doing damage to trees or blocking a waterway. They are not normally shot with a shotgun but at night with a lamp and a small-bore rifle as is usual for most nocturnal rodents.
This allows the keeper to be very selective. Weekend sportsmen do not hunt beaver. The removal of beavers doing damage is usually by a professional keeper.
George Sangster. Woodlands, Logie Craigo, Montrose.
Problem of defining God
Sir, – The fascinating exchange of godly and non-godly views regularly published in this column encourages me to suggest a psychological difference between belief in a personal God, non-belief in a creator God, and a middle way, that of holding a divine impersonal principle.
From time immemorial, mankind has held varying views, and therefore unique ideas about belief or non-belief in God, perhaps best summarised in one word, faith, as Will Brooks so brilliantly concludes (February 11).
Christian traditionalists may picture a wise, bearded father figure, while others content themselves with a more ethereal non-being energy, in itself more obtuse.
But perhaps the most abstract belief emanates from life being viewed through a lens which cannot perceive that a supreme power exists, nor has ever existed.
Faith in the belief or otherwise of a creator God may be projected on to believers and non-believers alike as their misperception, or lack of appreciation about what the word reality means for them.
As a faith, reality is for many Christians the causal outcome of the influence of nature and nurture.
Yet there is more. There are countless encounters in every religion where mysterious personal experiences with the “other” transforms belief and blind faith into a knowing, changing a more general philosophical hypothesis of a creator God into a more defined certainty of awareness.
However, once any experience, or rationalised idea, has been widely discussed and reflected upon, it becomes paradoxical, generating opposing beliefs of what God is or is not.
Andrew M Lothian. 76 Blackness Avenue, Dundee.
Real witness to creation
Sir, – Kevin Lawrie (February 4) has given some amazing figures in an attempt to show his apparent belief in an Earth age of billions of years.
Then there was an amazing figure of 90% of plants and animal species that were ever on earth but are now extinct.
This was then followed by four massive events which apparently destroyed 80% of animals and plants. The last one was 65 million years ago.
Next was God waiting four billion years to create humans. I would tend to believe Kevin if he was around at that time to be a witness.
As a Christian I believe in the one who created all things, Jesus, and I rest in the assurance that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. He was there.
George Mcallister. 2 Ceres Crescent, Broughty Ferry.