Lavvying up
Highland Councillors are proposing a visitor levy, and consultation, which will inevitably damage our already beleaguered hotels and B&Bs, and discourage homegrown “Staycationers” with yet another tax.
They have consistently encouraged hugely damaging wind farms, completely wrecking our greatest tourist asset – our glorious Highland scenery – to supposedly save the planet, yet won’t spend a penny to save the pan!
Ever wondered what the “NC” in the much-vaunted NC500 stands for? Answer – No Convenience 500! Communities in the North have been so starved of cash by Central Belt SNP politicians there is hardly a public toilet remaining open on our number one tourist route.
Surely it is time the entirely parasitic wind industry, with their obscene level of subsidies, stumped up and handed back what is effectively our own cash.
This could be used to prioritise pothole repairs, road improvements and essential services such as toilets, car parks, campsites, and so on. Just compensation for our tourist industry in total desperation, and blessed relief all round. Legs crossed.
We do not need a tourist levy. We need a tourist lavvie!
George Herraghty, Lhanbryde, Moray
Climate clues
Apart from the fact Baku in Azerbaijan, the COP29 conference host and chair, relies on oil and gas for almost half its GDP, and has little incentive to support many proposals, three other recent events should provoke a reality check and rethink of UK – and Scotland’s – “just transition” strategy.
The first is the tragic Spanish floods, which could have been mitigated by better warning systems and damage limitation procedures, and possibly prevented if the area’s gorges that enable water run-off hadn’t been “rewilded” and choked with vegetation, and Spain’s previous strategy of dam building to produce electricity and manage floodwater hadn’t stopped. Especially if construction of a dam to protect Valencia hadn’t been cancelled in 2004.
Even if Spain’s 0.7 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions was zero, without investment in “resilience” measures such as dams this disaster would still have happened.
The same is true of the UK where the estimated cost of global warming to the economy is currently 1.1 per cent of GDP (£33 billion) per year but only around £1bn is spent on, for example, flood and erosion defences .
This leads to my second “event”: at 4pm on 5 November only 4 per cent of UK electricity was provided by renewables, meaning 63 per cent had to come from gas.
My third “event” is – you’ve guessed it – Donald Trump’s opposition to the Paris Agreement and, I suspect, a collective sigh of relief from many western democracies looking for a lead to enable them to roll back on their unachievable commitments
Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire
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