YOUR VIEWS: Highland pylons plan needs political intervention

First Minister should step in on north pylons plan

It was heartening to read that the Scottish Government has at last listened to communities and ditched the controversial Highly Protected Marine Areas.

Communities across rural Scotland now look forward to the Scottish Government stepping in and acting on the promise made to them by the First Minister in April of this year when he said very clearly: This government will not steamroll through or impose on ANY community a policy that it is vehemently opposed to.

We are now calling on Humza Yousaf to honour his own pledge and call in the horrific proposals by SSEN to industrialise huge swathes of our environment with a concrete and steel jungle of massive substations and pylon lines.

SSEN has failed to reply to a formal request submitted three months ago to produce evidence of need so the paying public can ascertain if they are getting a good deal or not from this landscape-changing infrastructure and the many new wind turbines that will hook into it.

With recent reports stating wind power generated is actually falling despite a frenzied turbine building programme rural folk are, quite rightly, asking: Is anyone actually joining the dots in this seemingly haphazard energy policy that is blighting lives and landscapes across Scotland?

The only ones who seem to be gaining anything are the shareholders of the multinationals hell-bent on trashing some of the most amazing places on Earth in the pretence of ‘saving’ the planet and the politicians strutting on the global stage as world leaders in throwing their rural citizens under Big Energy’s gravy train.

Lyndsey Ward, Spokeswoman for Communities B4 Power Companies

Goalposts are gone but not forgotten

I can understand moving the goalposts to allow the pitch to recover, but it’s seriously worrying the effort people go to in stopping kids being kids. In this day and age, when obesity is soaring and people constantly complain of kids ‘spending too much time in front of screens’ to then report them for being out, exercising, socialising and participating in sports is embarrassing.

• Highland Council to keep its own goals as Inverness pitch goes without

We should encourage more kids to be out playing football and sports – especially in the summer holidays. School parks get locked up, it costs a fortune to rent a pitch. No wonder they turn to hanging about shops and woods. Remove the barriers and let kids play, we will surely only see benefits!

Shaun, Inverness

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