SIR, – I wholeheartedly endorse the position expressed in the article about the Scottish Wildlife Trust entering the fight to save Torry’s last green space (P&J, September 6). While Marie Boulton has addressed the issue of “balance and addressing situations as they arise” it does not exist here, as the trust points out and as recognised by the Energy Transition Zone Ltd’s own feasibility study.
Leave the park alone and use the brownfield sites of East Tullos and Altens for the ETZ.
I take issue with ETZ Ltd’s claim the park is needed because of the large number of offshore wind farms operating out of Aberdeen. Currently only the Offshore Wind Deployment Centre does. There is, of course, the uncertain hope that there will be many once the results of the Scotwind leasing round are announced and that any successful bidder will operate out of Aberdeen, but only 12 ha of the park is developable, which is just enough for a single laydown area.
I also take issue with Ms Boulton’s assurances she “absolutely and totally agrees with the trust” and that the council is not going to abandon biodiversity when it has agreed to do exactly that by rezoning an area which includes the East Tullos Burn and its wetlands, which as one of the three in ACC’s wetlands project, won an RSPB NatureScot Climate Change and Biodiversity award and is on the 2021 shortlist for the Innovation Category.
I still remain unconvinced that the economic case of developing the park is worth the environmental and social sacrifice entailed.
Susan Smith, Annfield Terrace, Aberdeen.
Examine this gift horse very closely
SIR, – In Saturday’s edition of the P&J you suggested that the SNP-Green alliance would destroy any hope of setting up freeports in Scotland, the premise being that freeports are, unquestionably “a good thing”. Freeports, or “charter cities”, are areas where the normal tax rules of a country are relaxed – zero corporation tax, low income tax, no import tariffs. This, it is promised, will fuel an unprecedented economic growth.
Hang on. Isn’t free import of components to fuel manufacture and sales what we had with the single market? And Rishi Sunak is promoting avoidance of corporation tax in the UK while attacking Amazon for not paying corporation tax? Professional jealousy, perhaps.
But think – if there’s no taxation how is health care provided? What about pensions, and Johnson’s “plan for social care”?
It’s not just tax, though. Civil and even criminal law may also be relaxed – no minimum wage, no HSE, no building or planning laws, a private police force, perhaps.
Rule by the rich and powerful for, well, the rich and powerful.
I’m 66 but you don’t have to be older than six to remember when a similar Nirvana was promised. The reality is, as we are finding out, rather different.
Indeed Peterhead, a potential charter city, was going to be in the vanguard of beneficiaries. No less than the prime minister promised them so.
One hopes, having already been victims of that economy with the truth, they, and we, will examine this particular gift horse’s teeth rather more closely.
G Davidson, Birse, Aboyne.
Tories looking after their own?
Sir, – After informing us, in 2019, that it would be a priority, Boris has finally come up with a plan for properly funding social care – increasing National Insurance.
Of course, this will penalise the low earner, while rewarding those of comfortable means. Who would ever have thought that the Tories would look after their own?
Ron Campbell, Richmond Walk, Aberdeen
Struggling to see point being made
Sir, – I am unsure what point Judi Martin was trying to make (P&J, Sep 6), but she seems to have forgotten there was a global pandemic during 2020.
Emergencies were prioritised over electives.
Had her condition been urgent I am sure she would have been seen soonest.
Dr Ian A Gillanders, Queens Road, Aberdeen.