trowie246

It's a pretty sneaky thing to try to do, at best inconvenient for parents and at worst dangerous and unpleasant for bairns who may have to walk up to 3 miles on a dark, wet and windy winter night on a single track road with very little verges. No matter what they try and say the travel time is from when the bairn leaves the house and that can not be changed. I sincerely hope our councillors can figure that out for themselves. They may in fact be making the journey longer for some bairns who normally were picked up from their door by making them travel to the pick up point.

I also have some concerns about how they are going to try and 'reduce' the travel times, at least on paper. Does anyone know how the designated pick up points for the school bus will work in practice? Presumably it is to reduce travel times, so the bus which used to stop on route and pick up your bairn no longer stops (within the 3 miles or whatever it is) So your child has to be driven or walk to the bus. So does that mean that on the return journey a bairn could actually pass by their house in the bus and then have to walk back?

You are right. And this was about the number at Scalloway. The quantity of pupils being moved didn't stop them closing Scalloway secondary dept. The main thing Aith and Sandwick have as an argument against closure is the distance involved. It is absolutely ridiculous to be moving over a hundred pupils, some 25 miles or more away from Lerwick by bus just to get to school.

I imagine the head teachers and also class teachers who have permanent contracts will be offered redundancy packages. Anyone on a temporary contract will be up the creek without a paddle once their contract runs out and the jobs run out. I understood that Sandwick JH asked for their consultation to be brought forward so they got a chance of the jobs. But the dept doesn't close until the new AHS is built. So how does that work? Or have I got that wrong?

^^^ Agreed. And although you mention Skerries as having potential savings overall, I disagree on this point. In theory, by closing Skerries Secondary dept, you could actually cost the SIC money. This is largely hypothetical (as I am relying on my memory which is not always reliable) but I did read the socio-economic report done on Skerries and I remember that a large number of people living there, especially the women, have two or more jobs. So for arguments sake, one woman not only works in the community owned salmon, which helps bring in money to the Shetland economy, but home helps and cares for the 82 year old living up the road. She has two children, one in primary, one in secondary. The older child has additional support needs. Her husband also works in the salmon. The secondary department closes. They have to leave the isle for the sake of their eldest son. The salmon industry is now struggling and forced to close. Other workers have to leave the isle in search of other work. The elderly lady has to leave the isle and move into a care home. She has no money of her own so this is costing the SIC money. Loss of income into the Shetland wide community. An added cost for care of the elderly. Please note that the above is hypothetical and might not happen in reality. But in these fragile communities the very smallest change can have wide ranging consequences not just for the isle but for the whole of Shetland.

It was thought at one time that super primaries were the way they were going but it seems unlikely now that the health centre is moving into the Scalloway secondary dept. It is possible that they have realised that primary education in Shetland is actually relatively cheap but they still want to get rid of the few primary schools that they see as easy targets. Someone said that the savings they made from Scalloway weren't from closing the secondary dept but by making the AHS more viable/economical by boosting pupil numbers. Brae High school is flying under the radar. But for how much longer?

Firstly, how much of a saving would you consider to be significant enough for all the upheaval of school closure to communities and pupils to make it worth while? £20,000, £50,000, £100,000 ? Secondly, you obviously are completely ignorant of what is going on in small schools around Shetland by your last sentence. Our school which has 26 pupils and therefore is not up for closure (this time) is involved in the Comenius project and pupils have just come back from the south of France where they met with teachers and pupils from the 7 different countries which they are in touch with. Uyeasound primary school which sadly was closed had one of the best HMI reports in Scotland, never mind Shetland. Even though the education there was described as 'sector leading' and there was no doubt that the quality of education was outstanding it wasn't enough to save it. The agenda here in Shetland is to drastically reduce the school estate. There will be one high school and that will be in Lerwick. And it isn't all about money as some would have us believe.

To be more accurate I should say that ALL schools staffing levels depend on pupil numbers. If I mind right the primaries in Lerwick that use streaming of classes have a ratio of 1 teacher to a maximum of 30 pupils. For rural schools which have composite classes (3 or 4 year mixes) the maximum is 25 pupils. One teacher can teach up to 19 pupils of all ages (P1 -P7). Beyond 19 pupils the school qualifies for a second teacher.

Can you explain what you mean here? In all rural primary schools staffing levels depend on pupil numbers. For example, at the moment there are 2 primary teachers in Mid Yell for 43 pupils and one teacher in Burravoe Primary schoool. By closing Burravoe 13 pupils transfer to Mid Yell, bringing it up to a 3 teacher school, therefore more or less cancelling out any savings and perhaps making it more expensive when you add in transport costs.

I don't have anything against Lerwick or the new AHS, all children in shetland can benefit from it if they continue with their education, a new school has been spoken about for decades. My concern is that this is not the right time to be building it. James Gray, head of Finance, stated in the Mid Term Financial Plan that there was a possibility that money would have to be borrowed to complete the new AHS project. I do wonder if this is wise in the current financial climate. But presumably he is the expert.

Can you expand a bit more on this, I have no idea what the transmission charging system is, but to my way of thinking the further away from the load the generator is located the higher the transmission costs are going to be and, consequently, the higher the transmission charge needs to be. Is this not, very roughly, the basis of the present charging system? I didn't understand this either. Surely the generator would want to be as near to transmission as possible? To avoid extra physical costs involved and transmission losses?

I should say as well, IF the interconnector cable is ever built at all. And it's a pretty big IF at this stage.

You have to be mindful that the interconnector cable has already been delayed, it was to be completed in 2016, now they're saying 2018. I am skeptical that it will completed in 2018, more likely it will be delayed again. All the time the cost of the Viking Energy project is going up.

I seem to remember when it became clear that the interconnection charges were not being reduced Radio Shetland interviewing Aaron Priest who gave a very cautious response to questions but hinted at the time that Viking Energy may no longer be viable and said figures would have to be revised. Then the next evening Bill Manson was interviewed about the same matter and stated that it changed nothing, the project had been costed out based on these charges, Viking Energy was viable. I remember thinking at the time that they were more or less contradicting each other but I knew who I believed to be telling the truth at the time. Looks like I was right.

We got a letter the other day saying our electricity costs was increasing AGAIN due to the subsidies being paid out to Green energy. The letter seemed to intimate that this was the first of many increases. I packed it in the black bag but wish I'd kept it now for reference.

Does anyone know if it is true that there is now a flat-rate of £9.95 for breakfast so no matter how little or how much you eat you are charged the same amount? ie a full-breakfast is the same as a slice of toast and cup of coffee?

Wow, what a ****. I'm surely not the only one who can spot a troll a mile off, I think Toby's winding you lot up.

Can someone explain the Community Council cuts to me? From what I understand the usual money which is being doled out to the Community Councils is being reduced. However, the £60,000 or whatever it was, is being ring-fenced so any Community Council or Community Development group can apply for grant funding for projects. So how can this be called a 'saving' or 'cut'? Presumably each project would have to stand on it's own merits to qualify for funding so they might not necessarily get the money but equally it wouldn't take long for £60,000 to disappear over the whole of Shetland. If I've got this wrong please explain it to me.

It says in the Shetland Charitable Trust's latest accounts that the company Viking Energy Ltd is 100% owned by the Trust. What happened to the Burradale lot? I thought they owned 10%.

^^^ I was actually replying to mikel who said negative comments from Mareel fb had been removed, I wondered as well if the comments the mother had made had been removed.

As tough as it is with 'yet another' increase in ferry fares our inter island fares are still a hell of a lot cheaper than Orkney's. I think it is fair enough that pensioners are being asked to contribute, a pound for a return journey is not alot. But as someone pointed out children do not earn money so their fares are obviously being paid by the parents, who already are paying for a least a car and driver. I understand that tourists will pay extra to go to Fair Isle but I don't understand why it's not being extended to all the Isles? I know that any kind of different ticket system will have administration costs but why can't they, for example, have it set up so tourists have to collect a card or ticket from the Tourist Office and have the fare twice the cost of the normal charge? This would still be a reasonable price and I think tourists would pay it. So the card is shown and the ticket operator issues two tickets? There is an element of trust with this that tourists will use the card but I think it would be better than visitors paying the same as locals. I'm far more worried about ferries being completely removed from service than an increase in fares.

Someone told me about a mother who had gone on Mareel's facebook page complaining that she had had drinks and snacks for her bairn taken off her at the door and that it had got loads of comments on the fb page but when I went on to look I didn't see anything, I wondered if the comments had been removed. I was interested in what people were saying as I have a child with a medical condition which restricts a great number of drinks and sweets she can have and was intending to take in snacks for her as the last time we were at the Garrison she had very little choice. It was the first thing she asked when I spoke about going to see a film at Mareel, could she take in her own snacks? Now I learn that's not allowed but I would hope that for a child with a medical problem there will be some flexibility.

I also went to the hostel (in the 80's) and I still remember the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach when I had to get ready on Sunday afternoon and leave early evening to catch the bus into Lerwick. It was especially horrible when there was stuff going on at home on the croft or we had visitors over. Once I got over Sunday night I was okay and on the whole I had a good experience at the hostel. That was at 14 years old. The point is though that not every child will be able to deal with it. Some will really struggle. And you are asking 11/12 year olds to cope with it. The other very important point is that Lerwick today is not the town it was in the 80's. Also, bairns are being exposed at a very young age to things already - think how you would feel as a parent if it is completely taken out of your hands each and every week. It is common for youngsters to have experimented with sex at 13 years and drink and drugs are in the AHS. I have a young relative who is attending the AHS at the moment and this is what she is saying. I also agree with the poster who commented that we don't want to go back to those days of separating up families, it's not a good thing!

I've been googling this but from what I can see museums are not a statutory requirement and there are many museums in Scotland which are funded and run by trusts not the local authority.

I was viewing the commissioned services of SIC Community Care, does anyone know why they 'buy' the use of the museum and archives from the Shetland Amenity Trust? It cost just over a million pounds. Is that the full cost of running the museum and archives? Why does the Amenity Trust (through the Charitable Trust) not pay for it?