Personal experience of Thor House care, Grid constraints make power useless and Concerns at Altnabreac plans

YOUR VIEWS: Readers of the John O’Groat Journal and Caithness Courier share their views on the latest topics

Essential service was stopped at Thor House

Thor House was a children’s disability respite centre in Thurso, the only respite centre of its description anywhere north of Inverness. This centre served both Caithness and Sutherland and, I dare to envisage, further afield.

It looked after children and young adults with a range of complex needs from those on the autism spectrum, those with cognitive and mobility disabilities and more, and it did so fantastically… until it closed its doors for five years to date.

For those of us who had access to this service before its closure we can attest to the staff’s dedication, professionalism, pro-activeness and passion in caring for the respite residents. So much so that even after the questionable closure of Thor House we remain in contact and the staff themselves, with the natural caring that comes to them, remain interested in the progress of children and young adults that they professionally cared for at Thor House.

My son started to have access to Thor House around 2015 for overnight respite, this included transport to and from Thor House. The transportation factor of this respite is essential for the simple reason that without it the carer would not receive the time that respite would otherwise have given them.

I sent a series of Freedom of Information requests regarding the closure of the facility to Highland Council between 2020 and 2022.

One stated: “Thor House closed its doors in March 2020. In the year prior to this Thor House had an average rate of 76 per cent capacity being used for short breaks, this equates to 589 nights being booked with 773 being available.”

This is hardly representative of a service that the Highland Council describes as experiencing a decrease in demand. Let us not forget that these statistics are only those that received the service, so we must ask ourselves how many were turned away, how many more families went into crises due to being wrongfully assessed or because of funding pressures?

In the following months and years the impact on my family and of other families and carers was of understandable concern.

I sent of another Freedom of Information request to Highland Council on June 22, 2022: “What impact and risk assessment has been performed to assess the removal of Thor House respite facility on children with learning disabilities and can I get a copy of the assessment report?”

Hold on to your underwear because the Highland Council’s response near blew the breeks off me: “There has been no impact or risk assessment as respite care services were ceased due to Covid restrictions. Changes to the purpose of the facility to accommodate different requirements were made during lockdown and are still in place, hence the temporary stop to respite care.

“There are no plans to conduct an impact assessment as we hope to reinstate the provision of respite care in the north in the foreseeable future.”

This is an extraordinary statement because it makes it clear that even though the Highland Council ceased an essential service for children with complex needs, they did not have any idea of the impact that the cessation of this essential service would have because there was no risk assessment.

The decision to close Thor House was and remains a point of contention because whilst the FOI states that it was closed due to Covid restrictions, despite asking many questions we have not to date received any definitive answer as to who made the decision to close Thor House.

I want to know who made that decision. Who is accountable?

Just because Thor House closed its doors that does not mean the need for it decreased or it magically disappeared.

This raises another question – was Thor House closed to save money?

The culmination of all this circumspection is that parents, carers and the people they care for had and have an affirmative need for respite.

Given the lack of carers or the lack of carers that can supply the measure of support needed, it is clear that a respite facility like Thor House is needed and should never have been closed.

An honest risk and impact assessment would have found this; indeed, family key workers do know but they too are up against a brick wall in the local authority.

Last year Highland Council said that Thor House would reopen for respite care. Through further correspondence we have learned that Thor House is envisioned to start operating again in March or April of 2025. This is obviously very welcome news and I know of many families already expressing an interest in availability.

Given the closure of Thor House and the period of time elapsed since its closure, I can’t shake off the feeling there will be delays, restrictions or reductions in the range of services. It’s happened before.

Still there is hope, through constant individual and group campaigning from various sources, which have all been community based, we have collectively been able to get our representatives to pressure the executive enough to clearly accept the need for a local authority administered respite provision.

Has that goal been reached? Time will tell in the next several weeks.

Leslie Sharp

Rogart

Sutherland

Grid constraints make power unusable

I am writing first of all to thank the John O’Groat Journal for the extensive and detailed reporting on the Halkirk District Community Council’s EGM and the residents’ concerns.

I would like to add a few words about the numbers mentioned in the article:

Caithness can produce 500MW of electricity from wind power and has another 190MW approved but not yet built. The existing export infrastructure from Caithness has a capacity of 1622MW (or 1.622GW).

We could export everything we can produce and yet our turbines are constrained off. This is because of multiple constraints on the grid further south all through Scotland and England. Details and numbers can be found in the publication Electricity Ten Year Statement 2024 (ETYS 24) from the National Energy System Operator (NESO).

The proposed super substation hub for Banniskirk could export a staggering 7GW – 14 times what is already built in Caithness! It would justify building countless on- and offshore developments.

However, it will not help with bringing the electricity to a centre of demand. All the constraints throughout Scotland and England will still be in place and will not allow for any of this electricity to be used.

Why does SSE insist on building up here rather than addressing problems further south? Because developers of wind farms don’t care whether the electricity gets used or not. They get paid regardless. And because up here they get away with it.

It is time to stop this madness.

Kathrin Haltiner

Dale House

Halkrik

Doctor should think of patients first, not politics

Having read Elizabeth Scargall’s letter [in a regional daily newspaper] I am dumbfounded that a GP, retired or not, claims a road journey taking around two-and-a-half hours (on a good day) is perfectly acceptable for pregnant women in active labour.

She was very lucky having paramedics and a doctor attending to her when she broke her femur.

Caithness women in labour have to make a much longer journey to Raigmore Hospital with no medical help on hand, in increasing pain, stuck in a car seat – no ambulance, paramedics or doctor helping them.

Also, add to this an anxious partner having to drive this distance with worries about weather conditions, hold-ups due to accidents and general traffic flow, it is not the safest plan.

Ms Scargall refers to the helicopter which is used to transport patients but that is only when it is not on duty elsewhere and weather conditions are suitable, which unfortunately often are not.

For my family’s situation, the helicopter could not assist due to weather conditions. Raigmore wanted the patient transferred from Wick to them so the ambulance journey began but had to go into Golspie hospital halfway through the journey as things became so critical.

A couple of midwives, a doctor and paediatrician were taken by ambulance and police car from Raigmore at high speed to attend this emergency and after immediate, necessary, medical intervention then returned in convoy to Raigmore at high speed to complete the birthing process.

Our outcome was good, thankfully, but not due to official pathways being good – it was down to staff being extremely capable and caring. Clearly they should never have been put into a situation such as this which could have ended so badly.

As a retired GP, where is any compassion from Ms Scargall for our pregnant ladies? Politics before patients seems to be her rhetoric. I am not interested in her scoring political points against Jamie Stone or anyone else, but feel as a GP to say this system is safe and acceptable is deplorable.

K Mackay

Olrig Street

Thurso

Edge of heritage site is too important

Once again I am compelled to put pen to paper, this time at the absolute cheek that a company thinks it can waltz in with plans to concrete 17 turbines in, 200 metres high on the edge of a Unesco world heritage site.

EDPR have no interest in Scotland, its people or its unique landscapes. Why should they? They are based in Spain with Blackrock as shareholders, established in 2007 to hold and operate the growing renewable energy assets of their parent company Energias de Portugal based in Lisbon, Portugal, currently the fourth largest company in the world based on net installed capacity.

This is nothing more than a business venture with monies guaranteed by the Scottish Government – so that’s actually you and I, tax payers.

The Flow Country is a Unesco site because it is of global importance, it has the most intact blanket bog in the world, and is also a fantastic carbon sink. It is inscribed on the world heritage list as of outstanding universal value. A requirement of Unesco world heritage convention is that there must be a buffer zone and this must encompass important views and be a “layer of extra protection” which enhances both communities and the site itself.

The wider zone beyond the buffer is still considered important as this will still have an impact and can change the dynamics of the buffer zone and ultimately the site itself.

This proposal needs to be thrown out at the first opportunity and these companies along with the government told that, under no circumstances, is our landscape for sale.

Alison Ellerington

Latheronwheel

What climate crisis?

As a retired geography teacher I could not agree more with Peter Campbell’s rebuttal of the case for building a giant wind farm in the Flow Country. There is no climate crisis, only climate alarmism, and a new religion of net zero which has resulted in successive governments spending billions on projects which are supposed to control the climate of our 6 billion trillion ton earth and keep temperatures from rising by more than 1.5C.

Last month saw temperatures in the UK as a whole, including Scotland, Ireland, Wales and England well below average. And February is shaping up to be another cold month.

I don’t know about you but I would like to see Scotland’s temperature rising, giving us milder winters, lower heating costs, and a longer growing season. And I believe that the billions spent on net zero would be better employed elsewhere.

It will cost £112bn to build new substations and hundreds of new pylons to connect these distant wind farms to population centres and £22bn on carbon storage schemes which will divert resources into non-productive areas – while a new general hospital costs approximately £1bn.

Locating wind farms in the far north makes little sense, especially during dunkelflautes, when grey days predominate. When you consider that the big coal-fired power stations near cities and factories, and on small compact sites like Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Longannet, Ferrybridge, Fiddler’s Ferry, and Drax could each produce 2GW of power 365 days of the year 24 hours a day regardless of wind and weather, you have to question whether government claims of resilience and energy security using wind, solar, and Chinese batteries, which can supply a small amount of power for only two hours, are credible.

I do not think they are credible and agree with Professor RG Faulkner of Loughborough University who has said: “In his push towards net zero Ed Miliband is committing us to a miserable future.” It’s time for common sense to prevail.

William Loneskie

Oxton

Lauder

Berwickshire

Gold rush

You don’t need a rainbow to find a pot of gold in the Highlands.

Just an iconic estate, usually an absentee landlord, a wealthy multinational wind developer with global investment company shareholders, an insatiable lust for money, a disregard for the natural environment and your neighbours, a complicit government and a bullied, cash strapped and stressed community.

Lyndsey Ward

Spokeswoman for Communities B4 Power Companies

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