Sir, – What a shambles trying to get to the Andre Rieu concert, mainly due to Aberdeen City Council’s roads department closing one lane of the carriageway from Blackburn to Craibstone for roadworks even though they had not started on that stretch of road.
There was an accident near Inverurie but that did not affect the majority of us as we were beyond that point and had to endure two hours of stop-start from Blackburn to Craibstone.
This resulted in us (and many others) only arriving 10 minutes before the interval. Having paid over £100 each for tickets a year ago this was very disappointing. Surely with a known capacity crowd of around 15,000 coming, the carriageways could have been left for another day.
Sandy Hardie, Belniden, Old Rayne, Insch.
New stadium a great opportunity
Sir, – Just showing my support for the proposed new stadium and what I think might make it a good stadium for Aberdeen and the club.
- An opportunity to build a slimmed-down, modern and intimidating stadium.
- Stick the boxes and camera crews in a smaller seated main stand looking out to three bigger-sized stands.
- Fill corners and have steep stands like Tynecastle.
- Maybe have a TV screen in a corner and some safe standing.
- 16,000 seems a little low, 17,000 I think would still have plenty of sell-outs, especially with European nights, and would still make for a good atmosphere for plenty of games.
Kevin, Garthamlock, Glasgow.
£50m investment by bank shameful
Sir, – I wish to respond to Calum Ross’s article “Warning on green lairds and quangos stifling land reform”.
This letter is not about the pros and cons of land acquisition, commercial forestry, loss of agricultural land, rural depopulation, carbon off-setting or carbon zero.
It is about the Scottish National Investment Bank. Our bank, set up by Scottish ministers, with public money.
Unfortunately, the SNP and Conservatives voted down a motion that would have made it illegal for the SNIB to invest in tax avoidance schemes.
Our bank recently handed £50 million to Gresham House, an asset management company based in London, to invest in its forestry fund.
This fund is aimed at “high net-worth clients” seeking “tax-efficient structures”.
For “high net-worth clients” read “rich” and for “tax-efficient structures” read tax avoidance.
At a time when more and more people are relying on baby banks, school banks, food banks and having to decide whether to heat or eat, and when one in four Scottish children are living in poverty, investment by our bank in a tax avoidance scheme is shameful.
Marion Ross, Glen of Rothes, Aberlour.
No Wimbledon bans over Iraq war
Sir, – Wimbledon: “No choice but to ban Russian players as Russia invaded a sovereign nation.”
So why did Wimbledon not ban US and UK players when Bush and Blair invaded sovereign nation Iraq?
J Moir, Duthie Court, Aberdeen.