Today’s letters to The Courier.
Sir, – As a retired teacher who taught for over 20 years in BuckhavenHigh School, I was happy to read in last week’s editions of The Courier that Fife Council are, at long last, giving consideration to a new school for the Levenmouth area.
Built in the mid-1950s, Buckhaven was the first of the new post-war secondary schools to be built. The chosen site was the school’s playing fields.
Any visitor passing the school must wonder why it was built so far back from the main road, in a sea of green. Not only are the current playing fields green but so are the public parks, Herd, Muiredge and Sandwell, and the two fields at the bottom of the school drive.
The reason is very simple: the school sits on the only piece of solid ground in the area, the sea of green covers a multitude of mine working close to the surface and, at the time, these were quite unable to support the weight of the school and appear to be so ever since.
Therefore, the suggestion that the school can be built on the playing field and be up and running in four years must raise eyebrows. When they sited the huts as temporary accommodation for Methilhill Primary, they had to carry out test bores to ensure the ground was suitable and that was for lightweight buildings, not a school.
Combining the two existing high schools into one, thereby creating a school population of about 1700, is consistent with Fife’s policy of ‘Big is Beautiful’. No, it is not; it’s nothing more than an exercise in economics and has nothing to do with education. In any case, this policy is inconsistent with the indications on the proposed new Kirkcaldy East School.
Just where are they going to get the student population? At present the numbers at Viewforth are somewhere in the region of 450. To make this new school viable they will have to increase numbers and, apart from new houses, the only area which can supply numbers are the Wemyss villages. If this scenario is correct then why build the new Levenmouth school on the edge of its catchment area?
If schools are to be part of the community in future then they should be at its heart; for this to be a reality the new Levenmouth School should be built in the Leven area.
Geo. I. Maxwell,Lina Street,Kirkcaldy.
Perth must look north to a go-ahead city
Sir, – It is with dismay that on recent visits to the city of Perth I have found rows of empty shops and streets devoid of shoppers.
Having visited other Scottish cities, I find myself not blaming the desolate appearance of the city centre on the ongoing economic circumstances but of lack of vision and effort in the civic and business community in the town.
Something different has to be done, not only in Perth itself but throughout Perthshire as a whole in order to stimulate trade and tourism.
Looking at Inverness in recent years I have been impressed by its variance and go-ahead attitude in comparison with Perth’s can’t-do attitude a classic example of this being the city hall fiasco, where a few dinosaurs stopped something positive being done with an unfit-for-purpose building from a past era.
Inverness, once a smaller cousin of Perth, has now flourished. I wonder if it could be at least partly down to having a functioning airport, something Perth could have with a little investment.
Then there is the roads network. I have found that many tourists in Scotland travel straight through Perthshire to Inverness.
There is little attraction in driving on the substandard roads leading to the likes of Aberfeldy, Tummel or Rannoch. This results in the massive under use of a huge part of Scotland.
Again my answer to this is hard work and investment in the form of a new road cut through Rannoch moor to Glen Coe, thereby opening up the whole area to commerce and tourism.
Rather than fancy new concert halls, Perth and Kinross should have been investing in creating modern transport networks.
It’s time for them to be bold and invest in the future rather than sit naval gazing, wondering what’s gone wrong.
C Laing,Moness Crescent,Aberfeldy.
Noise levels ruined gig
Sir, – I commiserate with Peter Adamson regarding over-amplified and distorted sound at places of entertainment. A friend and I went to the Rothes Halls in Glenrothes for the tribute concert to Abba and the Bee Gees. We were absolutely blasted by the sound there.
At the interval, the attendants came round and offered ear plugs to those who wanted them. Although they reduce the sound, they also restrict the frequency range. These groups usually supply their own person to control the sound and lighting.
The managers of the hall should tell them to reduce the level; after all, the person who pays the piper also calls the tune.
We will not be going back to that place again and I suspect that a lot of other people will be the same.
Should the health and safety people not be doing something about it? It is a place of work for the staff there.
John Haliburton,21 Bolam Drive,Burntisland.
Why does juice not mix with T?
Sir, – When my 13-year-old great-nephew was taken to T in the Park, his backpack was searched and a tin of Fanta was confiscated.
The article in The Courier showing a bus that had bottles thrown at it had me wondering why so many bottles were allowed to be taken in but a single tin of juice could not.
Am I being obtuse when I cannot see the logic of this? Perhaps some of your readers have an explanation?
Barbara Bayne,Marywell,Kirkcaldy.
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.