YOUR VIEWS: Farmland in short supply and needs retaining in strath
I was pleased to read David Taylor's recent letter in the Strathy about the history of Insh Meadows.
They were never known as marshes before the 1980s when the RSPB became involved.
Many a local farmer and crofter as far away as Newtonmore and Glenfeshie relied on the hay made on these meadows to get their livestock through the winter.
The last 250 years, or more, of agricultural improvements on the floodplain is part of our cultural heritage and should be preserved and used for what it was created.
Birds benefit and thrived in this agricultural landscape.
Without this initiative of our forefathers Badenoch would not have had the population it did and could not have fed itself.
In fact there was a huge a meeting in Kingussie in 1917 to discuss much further ‘improvements’ to increase productivity at a time during the war when food production was of highest concern.
At this time when the UK is less than 60 per cent self-sufficient in food should we be even considering schemes that reduce land suitable for agricultural through grazing and forage production. It would seem reckless.
The improvements to the Insh Meadows and its tributaries, like the Tromie, should be considered to be part of our built heritage and should be conserved and protected. Removal of land from agricultural use would be detrimental to the area which has so little decent land for production.
General Wade’s military roads and bridges are afforded protection as part of our built heritage so why not the River Tromie?
The most obvious solution is to clear it out and used the material removed to sort the flood banks.
The last thing we need is allowing it to spill out and ruin good grazing ground and creating an artificial island which will trap livestock in flood conditions.
Name and address supplied.
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Nessie is actually local to Glenmore
I refer to correspondence by reader, Sandra Irvine, Nethy Bridge in the edition dated September 11, 2025.
The Loch Ness monster does indeed live in a lake in Glenmore as that is the name of the glen in which Loch Ness is situated.
Glenmore runs from Fort Augustus to Inverness and it is why the now demolished Glenmore Distillery in Inverness was so named.
Your correspondent is probably thinking the referral was about Glenmore, near Aviemore, an easy mistake to make.
Angus Paul
Muir of Ord.
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Bookmark is wee gem in Grantown
Further to your article on Grantown’s top-rated independent bookseller going onto the market.
Massive thanks to Marjorie Marshall for curating her wonderful collection for so many years.
It’s a highlight of our annual visits to pop in and benefit from her expert help in picking a perfect summer read.
She will be sadly missed but we wish her all the very best in her retirement.
Janet Wilson
Newcastle.
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Scottish Government is failing to deliver 2026 pledge on NHS waiting times
The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Neil Gray MSP, has all but confirmed the Scottish Government will fail to meet its long-held promise to ensure that no one is waiting longer than a year for treatment by 2026.
A clear commitment going into the Holyrood elections in 2021 has been quietly downgraded to a mere ‘aspiration’.
The latest shift should not come as a surprise. Indeed, the Scottish Government has failed to deliver successive waiting times targets over the past four years and halted its commitment to the rollout of National Treatment Centres as envisaged in the 2021 NHS Plan.
A total of 10,369 Scots were waiting over a year for treatment in June 2025 and the 2026 target – while welcome – has long felt outside of the realms of possibility.
Some progress is being made to improve the lives of those living with arthritis; record numbers of hip and knee replacements were carried out in 2024 compared to 2019.
This suggests increased investment of £106 million announced in the last Programme for Government to tackle waiting times is making some difference, even if targets are not being met. It is vital that this investment is replicated over multiple years if Scotland is to effectively tackle the historical backlog and the injustice of waiting such a long time for life changing surgery.
Lauren Bennie,
Head of Scotland for Versus Arthritis.
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‘Channel invasion’
Since the start of 2018 until now the number of illegal immigrants landing on our shores has reached 182,188 and counting.
The total of Armed Forces and reserves total 180,779.
Perhaps immigrants should be conscripted to protect our shores instead of breaching them.The threat of this would quickly stop the Channel invasion.
Clark Cross
Linlithgow.
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Car hire firms should do more to reduce crashes
Whilst I admire the efforts of the T plate, we can easily identify tourists driving in the Highlands.
Those who hire vehicles that are much larger than they would ever drive in their native country are pretty obvious when they are performing random actions on our busy roads - selfie sticks from the driver’s window, pulling out of lay-bys without looking, deciding to turn vehicles around near blind bends, ignoring road signs, braking harshly for no apparent reason... I could go on and on.
I have witnessed all of this myself.
I feel hire companies need to take more responsibility for keeping our roads safe.
Not just handing over keys but taking more time to go over road etiquette in the Highlands.
We have had far too many accidents over the last few years, too many deaths. It’s not about giving these tourists more space and being patient.
They have passed driving tests and are opting to get behind a wheel in a foreign country so they need to take responsibility too.
Halinka Rands
Email address supplied.
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We need to change the way we live everywhere
According to firm statistics Scotland will have had its warmest year ever in 2025, from records of nearly 200 years.
The average temperature is now more than 1%C warmer around the world.
All weather forecasts are becoming more extreme with increased storms, flooding and raging fires from periods of drought, causing widespread disruption. All of which points to climate change being a reality.
This must now be accepted by all and that a concerted effort be made to change our way of living.
The greed of self centred nations like that of America and Russia must be altered.
For many years increased weather events have resulted in, worldwide, death and destruction.
The urgent need is for positive world progress, cutting greenhouse gas emissions along with a fair transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean renewable energy, when all life on our beautiful planet can be sustained.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore.
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Wildfire copycats are concern
A disaster indeed but inevitable in some ways (Strathy online: MSP to raise Dava wildfires during Holyrood debate).
To think we can control all of nature is probably somewhat naive, especially given the rate at which some natural outcomes change the variables faster than we ofen realise, and then not always positively.
Good luck and hopefully we can make a difference; the me-too copycat fires are a concern.
Paul Aarden
Aviemore.
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Brexit and asylum irony
It has always intrigued me how those who are most resistant to the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK are the biggest proponents of Brexit.
The irony of this is that leaving the EU made it even harder to control irregular migration than if we had remained a member state in the EU.
Brexit removed several tools the UK previously used to manage irregular and asylum immigration.
Under the Dublin Regulation, the UK was legally allowed to return asylum seekers to those EU countries they had transited through en route to Britain.
Thanks to its geographical location as an island, the UK was in a relatively advantageous position, as, unlike many EU border countries, the UK was rarely the first point of entry for asylum seekers arriving in Europe.
After leaving the EU, the UK lost this mechanism.
Additionally, the UK’s exit from Frontex, Eurodac (the EU’s biometric database for apprehended migrants and asylum seekers), and the Schengen Information System (the EU’s database on borders and security) has also weakened its ability to control irregular immigration post-Brexit.
Despite the well-known dysfunctions of the Dublin system and Eurodac, leaving them due to Brexit has made it even harder for the UK to address this sensitive issue.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh.