Sir, The argument that cruise ships won’t dock at Dundee because of the biomass plant is a complete red herring, made by people who clearly don’t go on cruises.
I have been on several cruises and the ships dock where the docks are which is almost always in working, industrial areas and as such are not areas of beauty.
People don’t go on cruises to admire the docks.
Sailing into Venice, for example, may afford a view of Grand Canal and San Marco but the ships actually berth at an industrial area at the top end of the island well away from “tourist” Venice.
Sailing into the wonderful River Tay will still be an experience to be remembered and berthing in an industrial area will not be a surprise to the people on the ship.
They are more likely to be interested in what Dundee and the surrounding area has to offer and the close proximity of the city centre to the docks is a huge plus.
In addition, the same argument could be made about the enormous rigs at the docks that provide jobs.
Not things of beauty either. Nor is the existing bitumen production site or the big metal recycling site at the docks.
Opposing industrial development on an industrial site smacks of NIMBYism to me.
I would argue that siting the biomass plant at the docks is exactly the sort of place it should be and I hope that the jobs it brings is the start of a new industrial upsurge at the docks.
Dundee needs the jobs.
Anya Lawrence. Broughty Ferry, Dundee.
What about those stoves?
Sir, Having followed the biomass debate with some interest I see there is a lot of scaremongering going on with regard to this proposed development.
The design of the building, for a power plant is not displeasing to the eye, which is more than can be said about the design of the waterfront flats constructed in the area and closer to the V&A and these will also be masking the existence of this development as well as the Tay Road Bridge.
Are we going to knock the road bridge down as it will be rubbing shoulders with the V&A?
People seem to forget the development is in an industrial zone and Dundee needs all the inward investment it can get. The plant will be strictly regulated as to what is emitted from the stack; better than the profusion of households with wood burning stoves where there is no control of what comes out of their chimneys and they are probably right next door to you.
Stewart Dodd. 15 Harefield Avenue, Dundee.
Gaelic should have a place
Sir, I refer to the article headed, Do we want Scotland to be a country that just looks to its past, or … in Wednesday’s Courier.
Here we go again yet another less-than-favourable article about Gaelic, this time suggesting that the language has no place in the modern world and should be consigned to history (at least the title of the article suggests that).
What nonsense!
Gaelic should have a place in the modern world and can be learned along with other languages such as French and Spanish.
Why is Gaelic repeatedly singled out for negative comments?
These comments should be saved for constructed languages such as Esperanto and Klingon, which nobody speaks or wants to learn.
John Devlin. 57 Blackwood Court, Glamis Road, Dundee.
You could not make it up
Sir, On April 29, under the Balancing Mechanism Windfarm Constraint Payments” scheme, some 13 wind farms in the UK were paid a total of more than £1 million for not producing electricity.
This sum being an estimate of what they would have been paid had their electricity actually been needed.
But these wind farms would not have existed in the first place without subsidies, so we are paying to build wind farms in order to further pay them when their part-time electricity is not needed because it is being generated at the wrong time.
You simply couldn’t make it up.
Malcolm Parkin. 15 Gamekeepers Road, Kinnesswood, Kinross.
We applaud this strategy
Sir, The Perth City Market Trust warmly applauds the strategy for the city’s development over the next 10 years (your report on April 29).
The vision of the council leader, Councillor Miller, of a “vibrant, economically strong, mixed-use 24-hour city centre” is exactly right and perfectly in tune with the trust’s proposals for revitalisation of the City Hall.
We particularly welcome the plan to set up “a city development board of public and private sector parties to drive forward key projects”, of which the City Hall project is obviously one of the most vital.
Vivian Linacre. (Managing Trustee). 21 Marshall Place, Perth.