WILLIAM Thomson (Letters, April 26, writing from Denny, shows a lack of compassion and understanding of why the A9 and A96 need to be dualled. It is not in order to “shave minutes off a two-hour journey”. This comment from someone who drove the road for the first time in a few years is insulting to many “frequent fliers”.
Mr Thomson has no thought for the Black Isle citizen receiving regular hospital treatment in Glasgow, the sales rep who travels weekly between Elgin and Stirling or the student who has just passed their test and is regularly visiting their family home in Inverness.
The two roads need dualling urgently to provide a safer means of travelling from the central belt to the north. As someone who travels regularly to the central belt, the dualled section of the A96 east from Inverurie, and then down the A90, is a journey that is much less stressful than the A96 stretch from Elgin to Inverurie where people often take unnecessary risks due to frustration. The people involved in accidents, fatal or otherwise, are not always the ones who caused them. Innocent lives have been lost for too many years and to say the benefit will be marginal is offensive. As for claiming that it will encourage more road traffic, all that was missing is for Mr Thomson to shout “I’m alright, Jack”. Denny sits slap bang in the middle of the M80, M9, M876 triangle. Perhaps he should suggest that some of the lanes on these roads should be closed to discourage more traffic.
You can’t put a price on a life. This is a dereliction of duty by the Scottish Government by not investing in the main trunk roads in the north. It should be totally irrelevant that prodigious engineering works will be required. It is clear that Mr Thomson believes that the many who have to travel the A9/A96 are not worthy of such investment. Instead of saying it should not be dualled because costs will spiral as happened with the ferry fiasco, we need to rid ourselves of the incompetent SNP Government that is not fit to run a tuck shop. Let’s boot the SNP out at the first opportunity and get in a party in that will fulfil those broken promises.
Jane Lax, Aberlour.
READ MORE: We've better things to spend our money on than dualling the A9
READ MORE: Neglect of the Highland Main Line must be put right
Sad state of social care
I AM an 80-year-old pensioner with few relatives and none living nearby. Recently, my doctor asked me to phone the council social work department to see if I qualified for help with day to day living. As I can cook for myself and can drive I did not qualify.
Having cared for my parents and my late brother, I have now been dumped by the social care system.
I have more than one illness and am worn out. I suppose that I am a costly "non-productive unit", and that the situation will be resolved for the state when I die.
Why has the social care system been allowed to deteriorate to the point of collapse?
Margaret MH Lyth, Glasgow.
New worry over cattle
IT is several decades since we were faced with a widespread panic over bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) being passed from cattle to humans. Infection rates were greatly exacerbated by the feeding of cattle with protein containing the remains of previously infected cattle and sheep. It is worrying therefore that the H5N1 avian flu virus is spreading rapidly among cattle (and milk) in the United States.
No one knows how widespread this outbreak is among cattle herds, the inevitable cross-contamination with poultry and pig farms, or the serious potential this all has for human infection. It was no great surprise to read that the US allows farmers to feed cattle with used bedding material from (potentially infected) poultry farms - feathers, excrement and spilled food stuff - as a cheap source of cattle protein. These abhorrent and dangerous farming practices are a result of what we might term “mad human disease”. Agricultural short cuts have a tendency to cross borders. We should be alarmed and asking: does it happen here?
GR Weir, Ochiltree.
Why are heat pumps so dear?
MY son has just visited me on his latest family sojourn to the UK from his home in Wellington, New Zealand.
During our catch-up blethering on what is happening to the UK, the subject of green energy came up and the cost of equipment. He told me that he had three heat pumps at his home and thinks that they are very efficient, cheap to operate and a good investment, but he doubted that he could afford one in the UK. He next told me about a friend who has just completed the installation of 10 kW solar panels at his house in Wellington for the sterling equivalent of just over £4,000.
Is there any chance that one or more of your engineering readers working in the renewable industry can explain this apparent difference in costs? Perhaps Britain is a country where equipment like this cannot be made and we just have to accept what appear to be much higher charges for importation from China and other Asian producers even allowing for government grants to reduce the price that home owners must pay for installation of one heat pump and around 4 kW of solar panels.
Enlightenment please?
Ian Gray, Croftamie.
A Coatbridge education
WHAT rarefied environs does Strathaven's Stan Hogarth (Letters, April 26) frequent when he complains that Angela Rayner's excellent use of "pint-sized loser" and "scum" constitutes "gutter speak"? He really does need to get out more. But don't come to Coatbridge without ye olde smelling salts, Stan.
Steve Brennan, Coatbridge.
Teachers' gaffes
ISOBEL Hunter (Letters, April 26) highlights the slovenly pronunciation used by Holyrood members and media persons. In the daytime BBC programme Escape to the Country recently, a couple kept referring to their eldest and youngest children from an accommodation standpoint. I assumed there were other siblings but it transpired only two existed.
Eldest and youngest? I do not think so. To compound the recurring clanger the couple both declared their professions as school teachers.
Allan C Steele, Giffnock.
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