Readers' letters: For 'Berwick Bank' wind farm read 'Bird Mincing Eyesore'

As if the UK in general and Scotland in particular didn’t have enough problems with wind turbines destroying landscapes and the environment, it seems that there is a plan to build another one (Scotsman, 1 May). This is aimed at a place 40 kilometres off the coast of East Lothian. The distance given being in kilometres says it all. However, the plan seems to be to provide sporadic wind power and simultaneously to decimate the wild bird population. There will only be 300 wind turbines. Hardly any, really. These will be 355 metres in height, or a mere 1,164 feet, or around the height of the Eiffel Tower, even if some of it is underwater. It is worthy of note that storms in that area can be severe, so let’s hope they are well nailed down!

As I said, part of the plan must be to reduce our population of birds, such as the gannets we all see at the Bass Rock, whose population has only recently started to recover from bird flu. As the Proclaimers might have sung with this proposed environmental catastrophe in mind:

“Gannets no more,

A reader fears for the future of the Bass Rock's gannet population if the Berwick Bank wind farm is built (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

Kittiwakes no more,

Herring gulls no more,

Puffins no more.”

The plan is to call this obscenity “Berwick Bank”. Catchier than “Spiorad na Mara”, however you pronounce that beauty off the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. I think that “Berwick Bank” should be given a better name. One which encapsulates its actual function, when those (unrecyclable) blades rotate. “Bird Mincing Eyesore” sounds about right.

Peter Hopkins, Edinburgh

Nuclear caution

Your story “Majority of SNP voters back nuclear” (1 May) got me thinking.

First of all; opinion poll results depend on the framing of the questions. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and it is stretching credibility to think that this survey’s commissioner, “Britain Remade”, didn’t desire a favourable outcome.

Secondly, back in the 1980s when “green” issues were going mainstream, groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth educated the public on the downsides of nuclear energy.

The longevity of lethal nuclear waste was highlighted, and as we can see here in Rosyth, even irradiated submarine hulls have to be kept at a safe distance from the public for many decades, at taxpayers’ expense.

Thirdly, as the Ukraine crisis has highlighted, nuclear facilities can be war targets. If Torness were to be hit on an east wind, Edinburgh would become as uninhabitable as Chernobyl. Food for thought, methinks.

George Morton, Rosyth, Fife

Runcorn lessons

It's hardly a surprise that Reform UK won the Runcorn by-election, albeit by a mere six votes. Arguably, it was expected that the majority would have been significantly larger.

The most revealing aspect of all, was surely the low 46 per cent turnout. Obviously there were many disillusioned Labour voters, for whom staying at home or voting for Reform UK was their chosen option.

Hopefully Keir Starmer will sit up and take notice of just how unpopular his government is. It’s getting past the time when he can blame their plight on the previous Conservative government, and instead take full responsibility for their actions and failures to act.

I believe that Nigel Farage and Reform UK should enjoy their day in the sun, which will probably be brief. They are, in truth, a one-man band, whose leader doesn’t like to share the limelight, to the point of being portrayed as a messianic figure by a disaffected member of his own party.

As someone, who has led far-right party after party under several different names, we can only watch and wait for this latest version to implode. With fingers crossed, we live in hope.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Sottish impact

It will be interesting to see how, if Reform’s stunning Runcorn and council election momentum and substantial vote share reaches Scotland, it will impact next year’s Holyrood elections because our PR voting system could produce a three-way Reform, Labour and SNP split.

You can hardly get a fag paper between SNP and Labour policies these days so it wouldn’t suprise me if they formed a coalition to keep the “far right” out.

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

Election promises

The English elections carry a message for the SNP. Don’t make foolish promises based on shallow and half-baked analysis of inadequate information.

For English Labour this resulted in a panicked dash to tax employers, the old, disabled and vulnerable because Labour boxed themselves in with the aforementioned foolish promises, on tax, and cried for sympathy because they had to “make difficult decisions”. Difficult for whom?

Meanwhile in Scotland we have had years of SNP foolish promises on education, health, gender equality, dualing the A9 and ferry delivery.

The electorate may take a view on these SNP failures that are based on foolish promises.

Let’s hope we Scots don’t make a gadarene rush to the untested Reform just for the sake of change. In all this what is missing is competence and honesty.

B Shanks, Forfar, Angus

Healthy debate

An interesting article from Henry McLeish (Scotsman, 1 March) on the health of Scottish politics; the mere recognition that it could be in a better state is a good sign. However, in saying “political parties must be honest with themselves, with each other and the electorate” is probably wishing for too much, given the state of them.

William Ballantine, Bo’ness, West Lothian

Nothing ventured...

In the business world, as opposed to academia, new ventures are undertaken with risks attached that are offset by sound knowledge and calculated confidence of decision-makers based on a range of pertinent factors.

Jill Stephenson (Letters, 2 May) bases her argument for Scotland remaining in a now dysfunctional union by desperately resorting to scare stories around a single factor: the economic performance of the Scottish Government within an economic straitjacket wrapped tight by a UK Government acting on behalf of an already wealthy elite (even with Labour’s Keir Starmer having authoritarian control at Westminster).

In 2014 no one predicted that the economy of the UK would be in the parlous state it is in today but given the number of catastrophic financial decisions made by the UK Government over the last decade we know that an independent Scotland would have taken a different economic path, with previously postulated GERS figures (including academic imaginary deficits) having little relevance.

Of course there will be major challenges ahead of an independent Scotland but in spite of overwhelming negativity spread by those with a vested interest in maintaining the constitutional status quo, the reality is that Scotland has vast natural resources on which to build a thriving economy and the people (as has been proven historically around the globe) to deliver not only prosperity for its citizens but an essentially egalitarian society of which we can all be proud.

Or perhaps Ms Stephenson is actually looking forward to life under “President Farage”?

Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian

Buried news

In typical SNP style, the long-promised misogyny law was dropped on the very day the news was dominated by English elections.

The SNP, who rushed through the gender reforms. now appear to not have time for this new law to protect women. The SNP is sending out a clear message on which community it supports and which it doesn’t care about.

Women voters have only a year to wait and given the new-found impetus from Reform UK the prospects for an SNP victory in 2026 look far too optimistic.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Remote control

The absurdity of SNP-run Scotland is on display as never before. The vote of Stirling MSP Evelyn Tweed – enjoying a taxpayer-funded jolly in the Cayman Islands – was required to keep the Green MSP who called the Supreme Court judges “bigots” on Holyrood’s equalities committee. No problem. Ms Tweed could vote remotely. Even if she had to be told to switch the visuals on.

But it saved John Swinney the embarrassment of saying he had to whip his troops to keep Maggie Chapman in situ.

I am well aware of what the Holyrood opinion polls indicate. The SNP’s diehard core remains.

But it reduces me close to tears to witness my country being run in this hopeless and cack-handed manner.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Great morning

Congratulations to everyone at the Good Morning Service, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The service (which started by providing telephone calls to six people) now provides 50,000 morning calls for the lonely and elderly per year.

This charity is a lifeline for those with mental health conditions, providing emotional support for its clients. As someone who has suffered deep depression, I cannot thank everyone who has ever worked there enough. If not for their kindness and compassion, I wouldn’t be here today.

Stephen McCarthy, Glasgow

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