Counting the cost of headline-grabbing funds and No energy crisis in some homes
YOUR VIEWS: Readers of the John O’Groat Journal and Caithness Courier share their views
Counting the cost of headline-grabbing funds
I saw a headline recently that there was £20 million being allocated to the Highlands from the UK government for “a wide range of regeneration projects”.
Like most headlines, there’s devil in the detail and in this case, the devil is that it’s £20m spread out over 10 years. I mean, it might seem a lot but it’s not much more than a drop in the ocean or, more appropriately perhaps, a drop in a very big pothole on a rainy day.
The issue for most of us will be just how this is to be spent. Highland Council is not a paragon of fiscal probity. For example, who can forget the near three quarters of a million pounds of tax payers’ money wasted in the Academy Street fiasco when a senior judge overturned a decision to redesign part of Inverness city centre? No head rolled for that one.
Or the several hundreds of thousands (and still counting, I believe) paid out to people who had already left employment but for some reason were still being paid. No head rolled there either.
I could go on about the council’s higher than average borrowing costs but I’ll just depress myself. So, as I said, £2 million doesn’t amount to much. In fact, it’s not even enough to cover the combined salaries for one year of Highland Council senior officials which are, if you’re interested, £184,000 for the CEO, £129,279 for each of three assistant CEOs, and £109,285 each for 14 chief officers, a total of more than £2.1m. And you wonder where all your council tax goes?
The big worry is that this UK money will get sucked into the Inverness vortex and precious little will be spread out through the region. Who is going to audit this?
Well, maybe it’s time for community councils to step up to the plate, get together and start putting pressure on the Highland Council to make sure that it’s plans are clearly laid out and that the community councils get a fair share of the cake. They could also put together a laundry list of what their communities most urgently need and start bidding for cash.
But, there’s an elephant in this room. The Infirmary Bridge in Inverness is in need of some urgent repair and total refurbishment has been calculated in the region of, wait for it, £2m. Watch this space, folks.
Ian McElroy
Heathfield Road
Thurso
No energy crisis in some homes
In our ambition to get to net zero and save the planet, an energy company is going to chop down trees at Forss so wind turbines can be transported to the Strathy wind farm.
What on earth is our planning committee doing approving more wind farms and battery storage when Scotland does not need the power? Do the members of the planning committee really believe they are working in the best interest of the electorate by approving more wind farms and battery storage?
If they do then I would like them to justify their decisions so that the voting public can make an informed choice at the next council and Scottish elections.
I wonder if this energy crisis is nothing more than a big con. When you consider that Scotland has more green energy than it requires and there is much more coming on line. We the public are already paying for wind turbines not to produce power and paying over a hundred million per year and yet our council representatives and MSPs continue approving planning which will mean we will all be paying even more for wind turbines not to turn.
I am sick of reading how the energy companies are working in our interest to produce green energy and get to net zero when all they are interested in is making more and more money. For example, SSE have this past three years made a [total] profit of £6 billion, their CEO has a salary of almost a million pounds not counting a considerable bonus, so no energy crisis in that home. This amount of profit is obscene when members of the public have to decide whether to heat or eat.
The energy companies have a GREED CRISIS and it’s the British taxpayer paying the price.
Why are so many energy companies still coming to Caithness when the energy is required in England?
If the energy companies were interested in building an efficient distribution system then the turbines and battery storage would be sited where the energy is required to avoid energy loss during transmission and not in remote areas like Caithness.
Could it be that in comparison to England, land in Caithness is cheap and we have a broken planning system that allows the energy companies to salami slice their intentions on the number of wind turbines for which they seek approval?
The energy companies have no concern over how much energy is lost when transferring energy hundreds of miles to where it’s required as they get paid regardless.
The energy companies can say what they want regarding the work they are doing to get to net zero but as far as I am concerned the only thing they are interested in is money.
I am dumbfounded when the party in power in Scotland, the SNP, who you would think has the interest in protecting the Scottish environment, are allowing the energy companies to run amok in Scotland no matter how many objections are raised by the public.
What does it say about our politicians when our energy secretary is happy to meet with energy companies but refuses to meet the public?
It’s time we had a public meeting on this issue in Caithness, attended by our council and MSP representatives so that they can put their case forward for supporting their decisions and the public can voice their concerns about the industrialisation of the Highlands.
At the time of writing this letter, Storm Amy has struck Scotland with 80,000 homes and businesses having no power. With storms such as Amy becoming more frequent due to climate change then why does SSE want to construct even bigger pylons which will be more susceptible to high winds instead of burying the cables?
Burying the cables will eliminating the risk to workers trying to reconnect power, and also ensuring continuity of power supplies to customers. The answer again is money.
Billy Sinclair
Ormlie Drive
Thurso