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It is time to switch off Grantown’s festive display





Fromt he archives.... Grantown's festive lights.
Fromt he archives.... Grantown's festive lights.

Dear Grantown-on-Spey

Oh how you have disappointed me in these times of multiple crises.

While driving home from Edinburgh Airport last night I arrived in my favourite town at 00.15. And what greeted me....Christmas lights from South to North and every one was illuminated in full festive glory.

While elderly people lose their winter fuel allowance,food bank use increases and there is a general malaise in the air Grantown-on-Spey manages to embarass itself and its fine citizens.

Perhaps somebody should look into how much it has cost to keep the High Street looking so festive....then make an equivalent donation of that cost to the elderly in the town

John Ramsay

Forres.

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Cairngorm resort in need of maverick to bring back better times

Some radical thinking is needed when it comes to appointing the new chief executive officer at Cairngorm Moutain (Scotland) Ltd.

We need a business turn around type of individual and a well defined set of negotiated parameters as to what we are trying to do here.

Putting a career bed-blocker type at the helm will ensure we get the same results.

What is needed is someone who is there to do a job that needs doing and not someone on the same career roller coaster that has been hired again and again; ie if you want a different and mostly successful result.

Has any group the courage to do anything radical by a maverick and fixer, would anyone even deign to recognise such an individual?

My experience suggests not.

Come on Highlands and Islands Enterprise be brave and use your collective common sense.

Paul Aarden

Aviemore.

* * *

Blast from the past... Tauros have been “back-bred” to genetically replicate, resemble and behave like aurochs as closely as possible.
Blast from the past... Tauros have been “back-bred” to genetically replicate, resemble and behave like aurochs as closely as possible.

No to ‘dialling up wild’ here in the Cairngorms

“It’s time for tauros” proclaim Rewilding Scotland, outlining their support for an ‘innovative rewilding project’ to explore whether a herd of tauros could be introduced here.

They maintain that the large grazer would fulfil a vital ecological role ‘that’s been missing in our landscapes for centuries’.

They insist that if we want people to see herbivores on rewilding projects recognised for their role in natural processes we need to ‘dial up the wild’.

No we don’t. I went to see two herds in the Netherlands in October.

These Frankenstein cattle have simply been created to sensationalise and monetise rewilding.

They are not that big, wild or different from my Highland cattle, who do precisely the same job already, as they always have.

They are always looking for the big story to get money in, aren’t they?

It’s just another way to totally alienate traditional local land managers fearful of losing their way of life.

Rewilders are always trying to alienate farmers and crofters and yet we probably do more with our livestock for carbon capture than all their trees.

Cows do not go on fire, cows are the secret link to high biodiversity, safe carbon sequestration and delivering for the planet and nature.

More power to the cow.

Stop people flying if you want to save the planet but do not ruin the Highlands and our way of life.

Ruaridh Ormiston

Ruthven Road

Kingussie.

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Mammoth task ahead if we keep on this path

RECENT Strathy articles about attempts to reintroduce creatures previously amongst Scottish wildlife suggest that stimulation of tourism is one, notional, main motivator.

Perhaps some Scots and tourists from abroad relish the opportunity of viewing predation in action, though the nocturnal lynx would not likely help that.

Evidently, it costs money to set up these (re)introductions and problems such as beaver activity damage to farming areas must give caution, apparently not realistically predicted. Likewise, although no more magnificent than a sparrow or a blackbird, enthusiasm for sea eagles has led these huge killers preying on lambs and calves.

A man in Alladale has been seeking reintroduction to Scotland of wild wolves, whose predatory activity surely could not be safely controlled, as has been demonstrated at Yellowstone park in the United States.

These days of increasing horrific knife crime shows that human predation is far from rare.

Woolly mammoths, it is planned by a firm with grants for elephant and frozen mammoth DNA gene editing, could reappear a few years after their extinction 4000 years ago.

Although weighing eight tonnes, they might prove little more damaging than the beaver or the pine marten, and much more watchable!

Charles Wardrop

Viewlands Road West

Perth.

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MSPs should pay the price for most expensive fiascos

Lorna Slater was the Scottish Minister responsible for introducing the bottle deposit return scheme in Scotland.

The scheme was scrapped after the UK government refused a request for exclusion from the Internal Market Act meaning Scotland could not include glass in its operations.

Surely this request should have been made at the start before Ms Slater gave Biffa Waste Services written assurances that the scheme would go ahead.

On the strength of these written assurances Biffa invested £65 million.

Now Biffa have taken a claim for £166 million to the Court of Session claiming that the Scottish government misrepresented the scheme when it told Biffa it would go ahead.

Scotland does not have a Recall and Removal of Members Act despite one being introduced for MPs in 2015.

However, Graham Simpson MSP introduced a Recall and Removal of Members Bill to the Scottish Parliament on 17 December 2024 so hopefully this will be approved and Ms Slater would be the first MSP to be subject to a Scottish recall petition.

Clark Cross

Linlithgow.


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