Sir,- In relation to your article on the future of the Perth City Hall (October 13), may I reiterate my strong support for its use as a food market (and supporting art gallery and cafe) as proposed by Perth Market Place Ltd.
I have suggested before that the likes of Barbara Vaughan and Perth and Kinross councillors should visit the very vibrant and successful market in Loul in Portugal.
This, too, is a Victorian building, slap in the middle of the town, which draws in the locals and tourists like a magnet (particularly on a Saturday).
Fresh fish and seafood stalls, as could be brought in from Arbroath, Pittenweem, Anstruther and so on, are very popular because of the absolute freshness of the fish.
Then there could be meat and poultry stalls, selling direct from farm to customer, at competitive prices, followed by vegetable and fruit stalls, again selling direct, followed by artisan freshly-baked bread and pastries, flower stalls, condiment stalls with jams, honey, chutneys and olive oils, plus local and imported wines.
The Loul market is very well patronised by locals and attracts a lot of tourists, who then visit the local cafs, bars and shops. Far from damaging existing retail outlets, it enhances them and brings in more trade, rather than visits to out-of-city-centre supermarkets.
To me, this is an absolute no-brain use for this building, one that would include an art gallery selling the works and crafts of local artist.
Hamish H Carlton. Gowrie Cottage, Little Dunkeld.
The significance of independence
Sir,- Going by the letters pages and reports in our local papers, including The Courier, my new independent colleague Councillor Bill Brown has certainly upset a number of SNP councillors and supporters by having the temerity to resign from that party.
Much has been said about Councillor Brown breaking some “solemn vow” or some contract with the SNP. That such a “vow” exists or existed just seems bizarre indeed it sounds more like some medieval ritual from around the time of William Wallace rather than a mature approach to local politics.
Bill Brown has decided party politics isn’t for him and that puts him on the side of the overwhelming majority of people in the ward he represents. I would be surprised if 1% of his ward were involved in any way with party politics or are members of political parties.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the remaining 99% have a healthy mistrust of party politics and, given the behaviour of some of Bill Brown’s former colleagues, that is hardly surprising.
Within the space of a few months Bill Brown has gone from being an acceptable SNP candidate for vice-chairman of one of Fife Council’s most important committees to a pariah among that very same group of people. It is they, not Bill Brown, who should be considering their position and behaviour.
Now that Bill Brown is free from the discipline of the party whip, he can do what all Fife councillors should be doing and putting the interests of his constituents and Fifers first always.
The sad truth in Fife Council, as in nearly every council in Scotland, is that political parties require and demand that the party comes first with the SNP renowned for its group discipline.
Bill Brown has bravely in my view broken out of that and within a short space of time has demonstrated his independence by putting his local community first with regard to the libraries issue.
The people of Glenrothes now have a councillor who puts them not a party first.
Councillor Bryan Poole. Independent, Fife Council, 49 South Road, Cupar.
Secular society, Christian values
Sir,- I hope you will allow me to correct William Markham when he claims I said “secular society denies human rights”, and then goes on to portray me as a defender of Islamic theocracies such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.
I said no such thing.
I was arguing that the Scottish Secular Society, a small anti-religious group, is opposed to the human rights of parents to have their children educated according to their faith, not secular society in general.
Like Mr Markham, I too want to live in a secular society where church and state are separate, but the question remains, what kind of secular society?
Is it to be one based on the godless materialism of our modern, atheistic secularists, or one based upon Christian teaching?
Under the former we will find that Christians and others are discriminated against and that we have no problem in selling arms to Islamic states that persecute and kill Christians.
Under the latter concepts of tolerance, equality and social justice have developed.
Before Scotland rejects its Christian heritage, we should at least know what we are rejecting it for.
Atheist fantasies do not have a good track record in the modern world.
David A Robertson. St Peter’s Free Church, 4 St Peter Street, Dundee.
Dismal unionist negativity
Sir,- The Courier letters page makes dismal reading these days, filled as it is with unionists telling us our country is “too wee and too useless” to ever be fit to run our own affairs. As usual we find nothing positive here, nothing conveying any hope for the future, just a bitter carping directed at the Scottish Government and using any convenient scapegoat, be it the police or the NHS, to attack the SNP.
All governments need a healthy opposition but is this the best we can do? And if so, we really do deserve better.
It is clear nothing has been learned from a General Election in which fearmongering and negativity by the unionists failed miserably to win votes.
Politicians of every stripe are fallible.
It behoves us as members of the voting public to hold them to account and in the Holyrood elections we do at least have the means to do this, which is not the case in a General Election when the whole of the Scottish vote can be nullified by an English city the size of Manchester.
That we can do so is a prize indeed and should be valued.
We live in strange times and, as someone who grew up during and after the last war, it makes my head spin to see a retired minister of all people write here singing the praises of a Tory government that has attacked and continues to attack the sick and the poor.
The same Tory government that denigrates refugees fleeing from war with their children on their backs, and tells us we have no room for such people.
The Good Samaritan is clearly out of favour in Westminster and in some corners of our Kirk.
George White. 2 Cupar Road, Auchtermuchty.
The cost to keep libraries open
Sir,- How much did it cost Fife Council to buy the office block that is Iona House in Kirkcaldy’s John Smith Business Park (October 13) from Paywizard?
I did make the point in these columns in August that the public have a right to know and that the matter cannot be hidden behind the cloak of commercial confidentiality.
Why is this so important?
At a time when the council is looking at cuts that could result in the closure of 16 libraries across Fife, it seemed strange that it could suddenly find the money possibly running into hundreds of thousands of pounds for this venture.
Imagine my surprise when I read that Fife Cultural Trust, the local authority’s partner and a body at the centre of the libraries controversy, is moving into the building, supposedly on a temporary basis.
This has been justified by its chief executive, Heather Stuart, on grounds of “operational efficiencies”.
Well let’s hope it achieves them and those savings can be diverted into saving the county’s library service.
Behind the plan to close libraries in Fife lie three things: a desire to create a really modern library service; a desire by a cash-strapped council to make savings; and a quite detailed accounting exercise.
The decision to buy the Paywizard building and the agreement to move staff from FCT into it, all seem to be part of that exercise.
Fife Council found the money to buy Iona house so it must have an idea of how much the trust will save by moving into it.
Surely now it can find the money to help keep libraries at the centre of many Fife communities.
Bob Taylor. 24 Shiel Court, Glenrothes.
Slump has not stopped the oil
Sir,- Figures released recently showing activity in Scotland’s oil and gas sector are not all doom and gloom, despite the slump.
In the year to date they estimate around 100 million barrels of oil have been found through exploration, adding to the billions already expected to be exploitable.
Not bad for a heavily taxed, declining industry with very little in the way of exploration incentives.
But if Sir Ian Wood, and I use that title reluctantly, it is to be believed we are all doomed and need to get used to the idea of a country without oil.
That would be the same Ian Wood appearing on the Sunday Times rich list with fortune of £1.385 billion, who cosies up to David Cameron to tell Scotland how poor it is.
Seems he’s done pretty well out of the nation’s resources and is now happy to talk it down at the expense of tens of thousands of offshore workers.
Meanwhile, his friends in the UK Government pledge to spend millions on Faslane to support a fraction of that in civilian jobs so that they can continue beat their chests and claim world influence.
Richard Clark, Craigton, Monikie.