OUR Scottish crofters are being hit by rock-bottom wool prices.
Wool processors have a surplus of wool due to the slump in demand for premium wool carpeting for hospitality and cruise lines because of the Covid pandemic.
As a result prices have fallen so low as crofters only getting £5 for about 200 kilos of woollen fleece. Some crofters are having to resort to burning the wool as it is not viable to transport it to processors.
Most crofters are dependent on every penny of revenue to keep their head above water, so this is a critical situation for them. The Scottish Government is said to be “reviewing the situation”. Why does our Scottish Government have NO VISION?
Wool fleece can be used for loft and wall insulation and is more environmentally friendly than man-made fibreglass alternatives.
Come on, Cabinet ministers responsible for Covid recovery, economy, rural affairs and energy – get your heads together with urgency and be innovative to the problems facing our communities.
Turn a disaster for crofters into a WIN WIN for the environment and our rural economy.
Iris Graham
Edinburgh
FURTHER to Shona Craven’s article in Friday’s paper on campervans, a couple of weeks ago some friends of mine were touring the West Highlands on their motorbikes and one experienced a mishap because of an inconsiderate campervan driver.
The one concerned, an experienced rider with many years travelling Highland roads, was knocked off the road by a campervan. The driver had ignored passing place courtesy and clipped the bike, forcing it down an embankment. The rider had stopped and squeezed to the edge of the road when this happened.
READ MORE: Shona Craven: How can we stop daft tourists driving local Scots crazy?
The campervan continued on its merry way but its details were not taken as the rider’s friends were more concerned for his safety and getting the now-damaged bike back on the road. It would seem that many campervan drivers are ignorant of both the etiquette of single-track roads and the dimensions of their vehicles.
As many of these vehicles are quite large, perhaps driving them should be restricted to those with previous experience of driving LGVs or PCVs and not just a plain ordinary licence.
Drew Reid
Falkirk
STEPHEN Tingle raises a number of interesting points in his letter (Aug 13) but the fact remains that the Scottish/English border had been long established prior to the Act of Union 1707, and is effectively still in daily use today, via Scottish education, the Scottish legal jurisdiction, the Scottish Parliament and local authorities and numerous other official departments.
Therefore, when we do vote for independence, there should be no dispute as to where the legal border is and who has control where.
READ MORE: Border issues should not be minimised – benefits should be emphasised
As to the sea, again that tends to be very clear in international terms and is determined by the point on land where the border meets the sea. In the North Sea, the territorial waters annexed by Tony Blair will effectively revert to Scotland as the point then goes due east from the point of the border. This returns the oil and gas fields to Scotland with immediate effect as soon as it is known that we shall be an independent country again. After all, it was done via the back door by Tony Blair and Donald Dewar without the consent of the people of Scotland.
The matter of Beaufort’s Dyke is maybe a more contentious issue and will largely depend on two factors: firstly, who or what is the continuing state of the UK, and does Holyrood really want to take this on? It will undoubtedly cost billions when we are setting up every institution we need to run a modern country.
With most of those in favour of independence saying that Westminster will be the controlling power for the continuing state of the UK (this also makes it easier for negotiation purposes on a range of issues), and as it was the UK that dumped the ordinance in the Dyke, legally it is their duty to clean it up. After all, it is about taking back control of our borders!
Alexander Potts
Kilmarnock
THE never-ending stream of religious child abuse revelations now includes Fort Augustus Abbey, a Catholic boarding school in the Highlands. The monks involved were told by The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that their behaviour was a “desecration of their vows”.
Religious recriminations are irrelevant: it was a violation of criminal law. This systemic and widespread problem clearly cannot be sorted by the churches themselves.
After the Grenfell tragedy the government quite rightly subjected every single building with similar cladding to a top-to-bottom inspection. If Christian institutions are truly determined to soul-search and to end this, they should immediately surrender the arrogance of teaching sex education and similarly open every door to the scrutiny of the police.
Neil Barber
Edinburgh Secular Society
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