Glasgow should cut back on vanity project, not on teachers

If savings are to be made I suggest that the council re-examines its own hyped and ambitious vanity project, the Glasgow City Centre Strategy 2024-2030 document, which has such fanciful targets as doubling the city centre population by 2035.

The council seems to me to put priorities in planning which often revolve around developing schemes to pull in revenue rather than evolve and enhance the existing provisions which have proved to meet the real needs of the ordinary citizen. Cutting teacher numbers is always a soft target but I suspect it is too early to say what the longer-term educational consequences will be as schools prepare to take the strain.

However, in an age of advanced technology we cannot go on being so teacher-dependent in the learning process.

Bill Brown, Milngavie.

We need to go nuclear

HUNTERSTON'S nuclear power station, still being decommissioned after a working lifespan of nearly half a century, provided almost a third of our electricity needs reliably and, compared with wind turbines, without unacceptable environmental harm.

The SNP's policy of exclusion of nuclear power sources is an avoidable own goal.

We already have stores of low-grade radioactive waste, adding to which cannot fatally compound the risks, judged acceptable for many decades.

"Green" and net zero policies, whether wisely or not, are demanding huge increases in electricity supplies to meet the needs of, for example, domestic and industrial purposes and predominantly electric vehicles on the roads.

The claimed economic benefits to the UK of a "green revolution" must be illusory if they depend on foreign-sourced hardware.

However, surely the adoption and further development of the new, compact Rolls-Royce reactor generation systems would provide a convincing boost for our own electric power supplies for our domestic requirements and industrial enterprises.

It might not seem acceptable to the SNP to change its energy policy but, with elections in the offing, it would surely be sensible to review its position in this vitally important area.

Without an adequate, reliable supply of electricity, down goes Scotland.

Charles Wardrop, Perth.

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Shetland's peat in safe hands

STRUAN Stevenson uses a Shetland peat slide to warns us against digging up Scotland’s peat bogs to erect giant wind turbines ("Shetland peat slide was a warning", The Herald, May 27). But this is an Aunt Sally: wind turbines are typically sited on hilltops where wind speeds are highest. Here, peat is thin, and rock is near the surface. As is the case for the two ridges at Kergord where the Viking Energy wind turbines stand. Yes, peat is precious, slow to accumulate, and must be protected. But developers aim to disturb peat as little as possible.

The Kergord slide was small (roughly 7,000m3 in volume), no one was injured, and damage was minor, hardly as “catastrophic” as Mr Stevenson suggests. Compare this to “natural” peat slides on southern Mainland in 2003. Then, exceptional rainfall triggered 15 separate large slides (with one of 59,000m3) on slopes likely overgrazed by sheep but otherwise untouched by development. The Kergord investigation will tell us what went wrong, but because the developer is subject to costs and financial penalties, the standard of management for these peat slopes should only improve. Meanwhile, great work on wider peatland restoration is under way by Shetland Amenity Trust but hitting the target of 2500ha of restoration every year to 2030 needs ever more funding.

Dr Adrian Hall, Edinburgh.

Could wind turbines damage peatlands? (Image: PA)

• A PROBLEM with Struan Stevenson's condemnation of wind farms in relation to the damage done to peat is that he suggests no alternative means of energy provision. But beyond that is he not being rather selective in targeting only the energy companies?

In the Cairngorms National Park there are no wind farms and yet there are multiple newly-constructed roads across peat lands. These roads are to facilitate shooting for fun or as access to land inappropriate for tree planting but nonetheless potentially lucrative.

A further irony is that these "vital" roads are mostly on land owned by absentee lairds whose wealth has most often been Shetland-derived from fossil-fuelled businesses.

Dick Webster, Kingussie.

Let's tax the cruise ships

SCOTLAND is fast becoming one of the most popular cruise-ship stops in Europe but the only real winners are harbour authorities and coach companies as the visitors bring little business to the shops and communities and in many cases create congestion in small ports.

It is therefore reasonable to introduce a tax on cruise ships for the benefit of the area they are visiting as they also present a considerable pollution problem which has led to them being banned in many European ports.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen.

Keeping the faith

J KERR (Letters, May 23) sees a striking irony in the fact that though the census shows that few in Scotland are religious, we will soon be in the season of Orange parades where thousands take to the streets to defend the Protestant faith.

I remember a newly-appointed canon on Bute telling me that once, when making a house visit he said: "I understand that you are of the Roman Catholic persuasion - am I correct?"

"Oh aye - devout. Devout."

"And yet you don't appear ever to attend chapel."

"Naw naw, Ah dinna go tae chapel. Go tae Parkheid every Setterday but."

Presumably while such matters as vicarious atonement, the procession of the Holy Ghost etc can be pondered by theological delettanti, contemplation of the Higher Things is the preserve of the truly devout.

Robin Dow, Rothesay.

Ship-shaped

FURTHER to Robin Johnston’s letter (May 27) my husband Kevin bravely quips that “Yes, ships should always be referred to as ‘She’ and in female gender, because apart from being good-looking and difficult to handle, they are always expensively over budget and late.”

Linda FitzGerald, Killin.