YOUR VIEWS: Independence event like no other; A9 and Inshes roundabout in spotlight
City duo plan indy event like no other
The Chain of Freedom Scotland (COFS) will be an independence event like no other held in Scotland.
This monumental and historic event is being organised by a very small admin team of grassroots supporters, led by Judith Reid and Wilma Bowie, from Inverness.
This pair of Highland Quines (both originally from the east coast but residing in the Highland capital) are vying for the independence movement to put any and all differences aside to galvanise for all that is good in regaining Scottish independence.
COFS admin Judith Reid stated: “The Chain of Freedom Scotland is without doubt one of the biggest challenges in organisational terms for our independence movement. We hope to galvanise a chain of independence supporters, with their saltires, to link hand to hand the breadth of the central belt – east to west, Bowling Harbour, Bowling to Lochrin Basin, Edinburgh. A distance of approximately 66 miles, which will should take around 77,000 people to complete the chain. The route to be used is the canal/ cycle path (NCR754) – which the team are dividing into 11 sections with subsections of approximately a mile each.
“All individuals, Yes and indy groups nationwide, of which some have already joined will be allocated sections/subsections which they can take ownership of to organise and promote, with the assistance of the COFS admin team.
“Every one of us is essential in participating. So get registered, get family, friends and work colleagues signed up and register your preferred link.
“On our long journey to present day, we have sadly lost many staunch independence supporters and to honour them, we will encourage you to write their names onto a saltire for you to bring along, so they are represented. This is a family friendly event where musical instruments, singing voices and good cheer will be on show!
“This event is planned with specific timing and relies on all those participating to be aware of scheduled timings and specific entry and exit points to your link. It is so important that each section has the number of people required to make up that link. So please assist us in ensuring that this can be achieved, by not just ‘rockin up’ to anywhere. Don’t be that missing link!”
To join in this event couldn’t be easier. www.chainoffreedom.scot. This will take you directly to our joining form.
Chain of Scotland Team
Investment in Scotland’s roads
No-one is going to disagree with Nicky Marr that the A9 from Perth to Inverness needs upgrading.
However, in the Inverness Courier of June 23, she attacks the SNP for breaking its promise to dual the A9 by 2025, and suggests that people north of Perth have been treated as second class because the Scottish Government has invested in the Queensferry Crossing and in Edinburgh trams.
This is hardly fair. A second bridge over the Forth was essential once it became clear the original bridge could no longer safely accommodate traffic flows it had not been designed to carry. And when they came to power in 2007 as a minority administration, the SNP opposed investment in the Edinburgh trams, only to be outvoted by the unionist parties.
The A9 is not the only trunk road outwith the central belt that suffers fatalities and is desperate for investment – the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness, and the A75 from Dumfries to Stranraer are other examples, as is the A1 from Dunbar to Berwick. The reality is that there are insufficient resources to allow all of these much-needed road improvement schemes to progress at the one time.
Yes, the upgrading of the A9 has been slower than the target that had been set, as happens with many projects. The important thing is that the SNP has said the dualling of the road to Inverness remains a priority to which it is committed, and I have every confidence that politicians such as Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes will honour this. Every month I drive the A9 north to Easter Ross. Can I say that I feel a lot safer driving the road today than I did a decade ago, before there were dualled sections and average speed cameras installed?
D. B. Williamson, Portmahomack, Easter Ross
‘The ultimate rat run’
I promise to be much briefer than the 44-page summary(!) consultants’ report or indeed Highland Council’s 1100 words on the catastrophe which is the Inshes roundabout (Courier, June 23).
Inshes, including its “branch line” to Culloden, is simply an extreme pinch point on the seven-mile arc of vehicular chaos from the harbour via the Longman, Southern Distributor Road etc to Tomnahurich, whose root cause is decades of development vastly outstripping traffic capacity. And please stop kicking the can down the road to 2026. The problem is now.
The Southern Distributor Road, in particular, has become Inverness’s ultimate rat run and already produces regular gridlock, with queues of up to a mile getting rapidly worse. One contributory factor is, ironically, active travel since pedestrian reliance upon badly set and sometimes malfunctioning surface crossings is causing huge traffic tailbacks, such as from the Essich roundabout through Culduthel Mains and frequently back towards Inverness Royal Academy.
Nor does it take much to cause added chaos even at times of fragile stability. A broken down vehicle is usually enough, never mind the pantomime of warm weather causing the lengthy closure of the moribund, 90-year-old Torvean bridge.
It doesn’t take 44 pages of consultants’ speak or even 1100 words of council words to state the obvious. For decades the council has stuck its head in the sand or indulged in fantasy sideshows like closing Academy Street and the Lego Brick Road round the castle, while Inverness’s general traffic flow has degenerated to an extent which I fear is already beyond salvation.
Charles Bannerman, Inverness
