School rolls
Torquil Crichton has an excellent article in the WHFP last week with which I cannot disagree.
My Review of TEN YEARS TO SAVE THE WEST by Liz Truss
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I don’t know about you, but I am fed up with book reviewers who lazily
review the author of the book rather than the book itself. Many of them
have cl...
3 days ago
13 comments:
I've never claim that the wind farms would cure all ills, as that would be a ludicrous claim.
I have, however, said that without a major development we are heading down the slippery slope. Torquil acknowledges this, whilst warning about expecting easy answers.
Do three things.
1. Catch up with broadband. Make it available to every household in the Outer Hebrides, on a level par in terms of cost and speed with the mainland. See Scandinavia for how this can be done.
2. Open stuff on Sunday. You can't on the one hand say "the culture is dying", while on the other stopping people from participating people in that culture for, what is often, the one day of the week they have off. See Scandinavia for how this can be done.
Currently, on a Sunday in Stornoway, you can get drunk, buy and eat stodge and play pool - but you can't swim, go to the cinema, the library, or use a public Internet terminal. How (un)attractive is that for any responsible parent considering what location to start and bring up a family in?
3. Tunnels. Build them to bridge the last three gaps between the islands and the mainland. No more uncertainty about if/when people can come and go, nor prohibitive transportation costs, nor lorries full of fish rotting away by the ferry terminal in bad weather. See Scandinavia for how this can be done.
Do those three things and it'll create a much more fertile ground for people wanting to move, live, work, and set up a very diverse array of businesses here. Don't do those three things and the Outer Hebrides will keep on gradually becoming a large open-plan retirement home.
On a related thing: those three things are all about communication. I met someone not far from here who started at Glasgow University last autumn. He intended coming home a fair bit, but weather cancellations and costs put a stop to that.
Because of the lack of broadband back home (meaning its much more difficult for him to keep in touch with his new-found mates), and the cost, and the hassle of getting home, he's thinking of not coming home this summer. The way he is talking, I don't think he'll come back when he's got his degree.
angus - are you aware, according to an inside source, that free milk is to be suspended from next term?
John Kirriemuir; I agree with everything you say, but alas we don't live in Scandinavia - maybe someone could give us a tow? The national political landscape is so different and that along with religious opposition locally will most likely preclude points 1) and 2) from ever becoming realities :-(
On point 3), I wonder does anyone know what percentage of homes in the Western Isles can currently get broadband? I know of only a handful of areas where broadband is unavailable via Connected Communities but I've no idea where BT are at.
There's a few areas around here currently without broadband, such as part of Borve in Berneray, and settlements along the north uist coast. I don't know about further afield, though I think the west coast of Harris may have patchy coverage (it's in Leverburgh, but not Luskentyre).
However, Connected Communities are I think on an accelerated mast installation programme. There was stuff about this at the last North Uist CC meeting, and it sounds like they have a stash of funding to spend on masts to increase coverage within the next year. Which is good.
BT don't seem to do anything outside of the main/large exchanges. Their programme of works looks like it'll be 2010/2011 before it arrives here - even then, there's no guarantee that they'll put the Outer Hebrides on a telecomms parity with the mainland.
There is a case for getting the broadband speed up; apparently this is technically possible. 8Mb is becoming more standard as the technology matures on the mainland. High quality video over the net is looking like it'll become commonplace in the next few years worldwide.
Towing to Scandinavia: best idea I've heard all year. Adopt the Kroner; teach Norwegian, Gaelic and English in schools; build tunnels; have a proper local taxation system; develop a highly skilled, highly educated socio-economic system; adopt the same political neutrality as the Åland Islands.
Sorry folks, just realised I got my points mixed up in the previous post on this thread but you seem to have figured out what I meant! Thanks for the info John. Just had a look at the BT availability checker and stuck in a Daliburgh phone number. The results said the exchange there is enabled up to 2 meg.
Can we have a feasibility study for a tow to somewhere in between Norway, Sweden and Denmark please Angus? Maybe closer to Denmark if we are going to have all these turbines.
John Kirriemuir, do you wish to pay the same high taxes that they do in Scandinavia? Apart from that you make good sense, the tunnel thing is not going to happen. Look how long it took to complete the Eurotunnel, and that links millions in the south-east of England to millions in the north of France. Unlike your tunnels, which connects a couple of thousand, in the islands to a couple of thousand on the northern Scottish mainland. Be realistic and you get realistic in return. Cheery....... Thewhitesettler......
TWS: Your posting implies this is a low-tax country. Not so. Plus in Scandinavia, the taxation system is fairer. One example: what's the use of paying the level of taxes that we do in the UK when, if you want/need a whole array of operations you have to pay (over and again) to go abroad and have it done privately. Once you add on stealth taxes and things you pay for in taxes but don't get, so you have to pay again, the UK tax system doesn't look so rosy...
Tunnels: a tunnel to the mainland is more comparable in construction and scope to the Scandinavian way than the bloated management disaster that was the channel tunnel. Tunneling seems to work in Norway (900+ tunnels and rising). If you look at some of the latest ones, they connect offshore islands of just a few thousand people with the remote and unpopulated west and northern mainland of Norway. It's a direct analogy with here.
Maybe the question should be: if the Norwegians can dig a large 24.5km tunnel at a total project cost of 86 million quid 7 years ago, how much would it cost here? And if it's a heck of a lot more - why?
Whilst Scandinavians pay a lot in taxes, look at the quality of life. Norway, Sweden and Denmark are at numbers 1, 5 and 15 of in the 2006 Human Development Index list. Finland & Iceland are also in the top 15 at numbers 11 and 2 respectively. The UK is at 17 up one place from last year.
Another point on taxation system. Grandfather of friend of mine in rural area outside Tromso (very northern part of Norway) was recently taken ill. Rings for ambulance; it duly arrives speedily; bloke taken into hospital and operated on same day.
Please compare this to UK experience. Take somewhere like Skye, which is less remote than Northern Norway. Ring up and you have to persuade NHS Direct that the illness is suffiently bad. Ambulance may arrive - but only if there is one and a paramedic available (see current news). Long trip to suitable hospital. Same day operation? Aye, right.
I'd rather live somewhere where you pay a good bit more in tax in order to have a reasonable chance of survival if something serious happens. You can't spend money when you're dead.
good point silversprite!
good point silversprite!
John Kirriemuir; Why don't you move to Scandinavia because you are not welcome here on Berneray. I have never read such drivel that you write. What age are you? 7. Get a life and move on, away from here.
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