Today’s correspondents discuss aircraft carriers on the slide, Edinburgh’s trams, children’s football at Seaton Park in Arbroath, and the government’s treatment of our armed forces.
Procrastination will mean £bns ‘down the pan’Sir, It is time for the Coalition Government to get a grip on its failing programme to equip the Royal Navy with two new aircraft carriers Royal Navy aircraft carriers could cost up to £7bn (Courier, April 29).
The original (2003) decision to proceed with the aircraft carriers was based on the assumption that they would cost no more than £2.7bn, for two fully operational ships that would enter service in 2012. Similarly, the American F-35 Joint Strike fighter aircraft that were selected to fly from their decks were chosen on the basis that they would be low cost ($50m or £35m) aircraft that would enter service in 2012.
Zooming forward to the present day, the long-term consequences of the MoD’s flawed and constipated decision-making and gold-plated over-specification on this project is plain for all to see. Even the most optimistic (defence industry) estimates now put the cost of the carriers at a whopping £6bn-£7bn, whilst the in-service date has slipped to 2019. The second ship will not enter service at all, but will be finished as a half-finished hulk or sold on to save money. The associated F-35 programme to provide aircraft for the ships, meanwhile, is in an equally parlous state, with the aircraft now estimated to cost at least £100m each (over three times original budget) and not now scheduled to enter service before 2023.
This is so scandalously wide of the mark as to warrant a fundamental review of where the project is going and what the UK is seeking from its new aircraft carriers. An honest and open review based on minimum requirements, not over-indulgent fantasy and nostalgic desire to recreate unaffordable capabilities that the Royal Navy lost in the late 1970s. As part of this the Royal Navy should stop trying to recreate CVA01 (the unaffordable British ‘super carrier’ cancelled in 1966) and instead accept that it neither needs supersonic stealth aircraft, ‘cats and traps’ nor the ability to “cross-deck” with the US and French, having managed perfectly well without all these capabilities for the past 30 years.
The government should wake up to the fact that straightforward upgrade of the existing Harrier fleet is more than adequate for the UK’s foreseeable needs, and that completing the two hulls as modest Harrier/ Helicopter Carriers with a maximum complement of 26 aircraft would put it well on the road to stripping cost, complexity and risk out of the carrier project, and saving £bns on the associated aircraft programme.
Alternatively, it can let the procrastination, poor decision-making and denial continue on this project until the chickens come home to roost mid-decade, and then watch with feigned surprise as the whole project goes down the pan taking £bns of sunk taxpayer funds with it…
(Dr) Mark Campbell-Roddis.Dunblane.Adapt route, don’t cancelSir, I am concerned that Edinburgh will become a laughing stock if the trams are cancelled by the council. Instead of opening the line from Turnhouse to Haymarket, why don’t they consider running from Haymarket to St Andrew’s Square? After all, the lines are already there for nearly a third of the
route and a cheaply constructed single line would then suffice to connect the system to the depot at Gogar.
This high-profile route along Princes Street could be run as a major tourist attraction showing an attractive modern face to our many visitors (including transport enthusiasts) as well as maintaining the city’s traditional reputation for investing in fur coats whilst neglecting to purchase undergarments.
John Eoin Douglas.7 Spey Terrace,Edinburgh.Taking away their exerciseSir, On Sunday I went to Seaton Park to gauge the reaction to Angus Council’s effective closure of the local schoolboys’ football team. It was universally adverse. At a time when the issue of overweight children is headline news, surely anything which gets children doing healthy exercise can only be a good thing. And what are the kids going to do without their training and football?
“The devil finds work for idle hands” is an old saying with considerable merit.
The Prime Minister has called for the “Big Society”. When I think of all the volunteers who worked tirelessly and without financial reward to make this club a success for the school children of Arbroath I think that is what he meant.
This seems to have escaped Angus Council. Local councils have a duty to the people they represent and it’s not all about money. Volunteer groups who fulfil a social need should be actively encouraged not forced out of business.
There was very real anger at Seaton Park on Sunday. Council elections are to be held next year and, from what I heard, there are some Arbroath councillors with their coats on “gey shoogly pegs”.
Jim Robertson.194 High Street,Montrose.Deserves great creditSir, The Military Covenant is to become a statutory obligation and battlefield casualties will be given priority when it comes to health care and their families given decent housing.
Leaving it as a “gentleman’s agreement” assumed the government would be composed of gentlemen and New Labour demonstrated how naive and foolish that assumption was.
Service families were outraged when an MoD civilian secretary was awarded £450,000 for a sore thumb while the tiny awards made to crippled soldiers were clawed back.
It is a triumph for General Sir Richard Dannatt, widely credited with having restored army morale by opposing Gordon Brown’s shambolic underfunding and conduct of the war.
In a hissy fit, Brown vetoed his promotion to Chief of Defence Staff and his peerage, but he deserves lasting credit for this reform which will steady the army and its families.
(Dr) John Cameron.10 Howard Place,St Andrews.