KTL

Anyone can find out director details, appointments and annual accounts for limited companies. http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ Each report is only £1. Old 363a reports show shareholdings, this report now called AR01. Re company structure: Viking Energy limited (VEL) is 90% owned by Charitable Trust, and 10% by 4 private individuals - one of whom, David Thomson, just happens to be employed by Viking Energy Limited and just happens to be one of the private shareholders. Any spin about "Burradale" directors is just to muddy the already fetid waters. The partnership is between the corporate entities of Viking Energy limited and SSE Viking Limited. Viking Energy Partnership (VEP) is just a partnership, so no company house information available. The shareholding situation is irrelevant to the partnership. It's basically 50/50 SCT and SSE, each directing whoever they put to the meeting. This means that Charitable Trust trustees control, direct, and are responsible for the activities of Viking Energy and the conduct of their representatives on the partnership. This is why 9 councillors voted for their own development. What determines the partnership is the partnership agreement - signed by the SIC, and then transferred to the SCT. As much as I can see in the public domain, each company provides 2 representatives to the partnership to make decisions. I.e. 1 vote each, 4 people, 4 votes. The partnership has a rotating chair - currently Chris Marden from SSE. The chair doesn't have a casting vote, so all decisions have to be unanimous. The public have been refused access to the partnership agreement signed in our name, but some councillors have seen it. If SSE bought out the 4 private shareholders, it would probably have no impact on partnership control. Personally I find the relationship between SCT and the four minority shareholders much more curious.

Dear Sire We are most appreciative of your industrious efforts on our behalf. One question, my car is nearly 10 years old. Should I keep repairing it or is it better to get a newer one? Could you put a few spare consultants / deputies / assistant / sub-CEs on the case and let me know what I should do? Cheers

The Charitable Trust spends our money on things like leisure, recreation, culture, equalisation of care home charges, local business investment etc. All well and good. SIC spend on roads, transport and things which used to be called public services in the old days. It is unlikely that SCT can afford its own share of the windfarm. To afford their £60m deposit, they either have to cut spending (currently about £12m a year) or run down capital. This isn't for just one or two years. It's for up to 5 years of the construction period. If the SCT also wants to put up the money for a new Anderson High this creates some interesting prospects. SCT have about £180m in funds. They then commit: £60m to Viking Energy. £60m of 5 years current spending. £49m to a new AHS. That leaves about £11m. At that point the SCT would be on its knees and close to collapse. One more year of spending, any delay in Viking Energy etc. and the Trust would be finished. If you don't like that version, the alternative is to make a huge cut in the £12m annual spend. The easiest targets are leisure and culture. If SCT reduced their core funding, these organisations have to save costs by cutting opening hours, cutting staff, reducing service, increasing charges. What would Shetland look like after 5 years of that? Some within SIC have made noises that maybe the SIC could "invest" as well. Same people you understand, just different playing different roles. If this happens, then we can look forward to even bigger SIC cuts than are currently on the table, because their cash would come from the reserve fund, which underwrites a lot of the current SIC spending. No investment can ever be guaranteed. The higher the potential returns, the greater the risk. Traditionally, the high return - low risk pitch has been aimed at the desperate, the gullible and the greedy. This was the philosophy underpinning the recent financial meltdown. Governments might have bailed out the banks, but they won't bail out Setland. This was, and remains, a very high risk investment. Any assumption of guarenteed profit with low risk is a dangerous exercise in self-delusion.

I wonder if North Isles councillors have twigged that if the windfarm was ever to go ahead, their constituents will face up to 5 years of road closures, diversions and delays as they try to get up and down to Lerwick? Josie Simpson, Laura Baisley and Robert Henderson think on. Construction traffic, plant and equipment movements will continue 7 days a week 52 weeks a year for up to 5 years. The Lang Kames is the main route North and South. It will also be the main arterial route for all construction traffic. Diversions will be via Nesting or via Voe to Eid and back through Weisdale. Every time there is a serious accident on the Lang Kames, this is what happens. Thankfully those occasions are rare, and accidental. Imagine if these closures were deliberate and with official permission. Will Viking Energy compensate you for your extra fuel costs, lost business, missed appointments? I doubt it.

I see our own dear MP has voted for a rise in tuition fees. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11964669 Even some Tories voted against it, but not Alistair.

What some councillors did to Scalloway today, other MSPs and MPs sitting far away will do to Shetland in the near future. What will these councillors say then? Bells Brae and Sound Primaries parent councils appeared to lobby town councillors in favour of closure. Shame on them. Was this their own decision or one encouraged by a certain councillor? How would they feel when decisions taken in Edinburgh or London to cut funding to their community was justified on the basis of a group in Edinburgh or London being used to lobby against them? We are a small, remote island group with a tiny population which votes the same way every election. Imagine how that looks to a politician sitting in Edinburgh or London? If Shetland communities do not stand together we will be picked off one by one and will all suffer because of it.

If you think your hard drive is about to check out - and it won't boot - fiddling around and trying to reinstall software is a sure fire way of making any data recovery much more difficult. Sometimes with HD failure you only get one chance at data recovery. If you use that one chance on trying to reinstall an operating system, you may regret it. ITS in Lerwick do a range of data-recovery and data rebuilding services. No I don't work there, but know from experience they are very good. It's not particularly expensive either, they just have the tools, software and experience.

SIC Services committee will meet in the Town Hall on Tuesday 7 Dec. at 10 am to make its decision on whether or not to close Scalloway and Skerries secondary schools. This meeting will be chaired by Gussie Angus. The public can attend this meeting, and a big turn out from parents, relatives, grannies and granddads and other folk from the community would be great. On Wednesday, the full council will meet to make the final decision on closure. This meeting will be chaired by Sandy Cluness. The presence of the public at these meetings could make a big difference to the outcome. The decision to close schools will be for councillors and councillors alone.

People can register an objection to the project through the Scottish Governments Energy Consents Unit. The SIC is only a consultee for the windfarm, not the planning authority. Email objections to: EnergyConsents@scotland.gsi.gov.uk All objections must state their name and address. Project you are objecting to is Viking Energy Windfarm, Shetland. One person- one objection, don't include several people on one response. Send written objections to: Energy Consents and Deployment Unit Scottish Government 4rd Floor 5 Atlantic Quay 150 Broomielaw Glasgow G2 8LU Info from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Business-Industry/Energy/Infrastructure/Energy-Consents/Support-object

For the hard of thinking I will restate the facts: Sustainable Shetland went out of their way to tell members in advance, and people present at meetings to only vote once. The claim by Stirrer that we encouraged people to vote more than once at community planning meetings is inaccurate, misleading and I can only presume Stirrer has malicious intent. From what I saw at 2 planning meetings, the vast majority of people, regardless of whether they were for or against the planning application, behaved with dignity and respect and participated fairly. His claim that I personally encouraged people to vote more than once is actionable. To his other points regarding encouraging planning responses. If someone’s objection was based solely on "150 turbines are too many" they will need to re-submit their application in light of the addendum. If someone didn't get around to making an objection first time around, this addendum allows them to make an objection this time.

This is a lie. He is accusing me of manipulating votes, I did no such thing. This is slander and will not be tolerated. I will now give Stirrer the opportunity to withdraw this allegation.

Ah stirrer, well named. You make an allegation of "multiple objections by the same people at different SIC meetings". Do you mean folk spoke at more than one meeting? Or are you alleging that folk took part in the vote at more than one meeting? For the record Sustainable Shetland members, and others, went out of their way at each meeting to tell people not to vote if they had voted at any other meeting. You can read the transcripts if you like. http://www.sustainableshetland.org/planning/index.htm You will also find a number of prominent wind farm supporters rubbishing marine power... And whilst we are on the subject of objecting and supporting, you will also recall that Viking Energy employed a PR company (at our expense) to organise online and print advertising to get people to write letters of support. The Viking Energy website used sophisticated software to automatically generate letters of support which were made to look like real individual letters, i.e. rough grammar, irrelevant points colloquial language etc. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. What is amazing is that with so much money, resources and information at their fingertips, Viking Energy could only muster 518 letters of support. A fraction of the 2026 objections I think you will agree.

All the numbers indicate the majority of people do not want the Viking Energy wind farm to go ahead. The SIC organised meetings averaged 75% opposition. The original Viking Energy planning application resulted in 2026 objections and just 518 in support. The Viking Energy planning addendum may be released tomorrow. As it stands people would have just 28 days to submit objections. Technically the original objections still count as raw numbers, but if folk objected before, it would be a good idea to also submit a new objection just to make sure.

Well done some of the shetlink contributors on this thread. Shetlink is a window on Shetland visible throughout the world. The content is fully indexed by Google, and archived for posterity by Google and other services. From some of the contributions on this topic, the international image of the Shetland community will be of knuckle dragging rednecks discussing the possibility of assault and attempted murder on folk taking part in a peaceful protest. Not a great image to share with the world. Imagine if the boot was on the other foot? A green website discussing the possibility of drowning or assaulting, lets say oil workers or fishermen? That would be just as wrong and condemned as such. Regardless of whether you like Greenpeace or not, their action has highlighted the issues of deep water oil exploration. Folk can argue there is zero risk from this, or otherwise. But to simply attack the messenger is a cop out. Personally I've got a lot of problems with how Greenpeace operates and their views on some areas, but that doesn't blind me to the fact they have ample grounds for worry about deep water oil work. Whilst relatives buried their dead from the deep water horizon rig, and BP continued to pump millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP in this country continued with their greenwash PR offensive. That for me is the greater evil than a few caped crusaders in Lerwick harbour.

Cluness would be quite happy to push through cuts if he thought he could get away with it. An example? The convener, along with most other councillors, voted to go forward with plans to close Scalloway Junior high. The educational justification for this was very weak. Instead a financial argument was wheeled out. The highest single school cost is salaries, about £880,000 a year at SJH. The council says it can make savings of £1.2m, but if there are no redundancies at Scalloway Junior High, there are no real savings at all since most other costs remain.

SIC are holding a public meeting at Scalloway Junior High School on Tuesday 21st September, starting at 7pm. The meeting is open to everyone, but especially anyone with an interest in education (primary and secondary) in the Burra, Trondra, Nesting, Tingwall, Whiteness, Weisdale and Scalloway areas. This meeting is part of the statutory process for their proposed closure of Scalloway Junior High. Officials form the Education Department will be there, and all issues raised will become part of the consultation. It is your chance to have your say and the more people that attend, the more chance there is to influence the future of education provision in the central mainland. The closure proposal document fails to justify the closure on educational grounds, and any claimed savings are not substantiated. More info at http://www.savescallowayschool.org/

The penny hasn't dropped for folk with bairns attending AHS - closing Scalloway = bigger class sizes = poorer deal for everyone. And besides actual pupil-teacher ratio, physical space and facilities at Anderson High, especially common areas and canteen space, are already struggle to cope with existing student numbers. The proposed closure is planned for 2011. There are no plans, and no final site yet for a new AHS, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the current AHS still in use in 5 years time. And when you are talking of money, it's much cheeper to use existing facilities that are fit for purpose - such as Scalloway, than it is to create a new build much bigger than it has to be.

Paul Before handing over any money or signing any contract with this guy, I'd check the situation with feed in tarrifs in Shetland. I seem to remember that SSE were not allowing any new renewable connections to the Shetland grid to qualify for feed in tarrifs. Some thought SSE were doing this as a ploy to get people to support theit interconnector / Viking wind farm by making life as difficult as possible for small scale renewables. It also avoids the need for them to spend money to upgrade the local grid to make it more efficient, or to get on with building a new, more efficient and much cleaner power station. So check if situation with feed in tarrifs has changed. This guy in England may not be familiar with the situation. Alternatively contact Shetland Wind Power (www.shetlandwindpower.co.uk) who know a lot more about wind power in Shetland.

Err, I think it did. Windfarm supporters announced 23 Sep. SIC meetings start 28 Sep. http://www.shetland-news.co.uk/2009/September/letters/New%20group%20in%20support%20of%20wind%20farm.htm When Viking Energy organised the first "Windfarm supporters Group" meeting in Solarhus, were you there? When was it? The SIC meetings were the catalist for Viking Energy to set up the group. They needed someone to put thier point of view at the community meetings. That people were there in their own capacity will come as news to Windfarm Supporters who clearly declared themselves as such in the meeting transcripts - see Brae transcript when John Sutherland says "I’m a member of the Wind Farm Supporters." http://www.sustainableshetland.org/docs/SIC_Public_Meeting_VikingWindfarm_Brae_280909.pdf, page 6.

I don't know where you picked up these numbers from Carlos, but the only real numbers available are the Shetland Times poll, and SIC windfarm community meetings. The average result from the SIC meetings was 75% opposing the Viking Energy planning application, 21% supporting. I think this is fairly clear what folk think. Now admittedly not many folk will attend a meeting to say they have no opinion either way. In any election we don't call it null and void if we get less than 50% turnout. In a simple for or against vote, the don't knows don't count. On the other hand the Viking Energy support group did organise its members to attend, and all spoke at great length at each meeting, and the best they could come up with was 21% support. It is no surprise that Viking Energy pulled their planning application soon after the SIC community meetings in in Sep/ Oct 2009. Viking Energy said an "addendum" would be appearing "at the turn of the year". It's nearly July, and no sign of it. So much for keeping to deadlines! For further confirmation of real numbers, there were 2544 representations to the planning application, 2026 were objecting and 518 were in support. That's roughly 80% for and 20% against. In terms of sample size this is far bigger than either the Shetland Times poll or the SIC community meetings. A glaring ommission from the 2544 representations is the SIC. To date SIC councillors still haven't discussed the Vikign Energy planning application. Every other statutory body from SNH to SEPA have responded, but the SIC have still to discuss it. A disgrace to local government and democracy.

Cheers GBC I think you'll find one third of 12 is a shade under four months, not one..., but the point I was trying to make was that a sizeable chunk of the headline figure makes it way back to the government, and doesn't disappear into offshore bank accounts as private profit. Now, if this was a paper exercise to save money, how about cutting some of the dodgy deals the public sector makes with the private sector such as PFI, big grants to deadbeat companies, blank cheque consultancy services to cover poor decision making or to cover their own mistakes, and paying over the odds for big infrastructure programs? Unfortunately it is a real attempt to undermine local government and the wider public sector, as a means to privatise and convert public good into private profit for the handful of very large trans-national companies who would like this to happen.

How did we get into this crisis? UK and international banks carried out reckless, high risk and ultimately damaging lending and investment strategies. Many banks collapsed, those which didn't collapse were bailed out by national governments. Now these governments have huge budget defecits. Their solution is not to change the system which created the crisis. Their solution is cut public expenditure to satisfy the needs of the very markets which created the problem in the first place! We should not be fighting amounst ourselves. This mess is not our our making. We should not be paying for the mistakes of others. Anyway, cutting public sector jobs is a bizzare way to address this problem. At least a third of money paid out on public sector jobs goes straigt back to the government in tax, national insurance and employers national insurance. The VAT on things we buy goes straight back to the government. VAT is a regressive tax. The lower paid you are, the more of your annual income you pay out in VAT. Cuts in public sector employment are not the answer. A proper overhaul of the tax system is the answer. Those who can afford it should pay most, and those who can't afford it should get most help.

Actually I'm a consultant-in-waiting for VE. After they read this thread I expect the letter of appointment will be in the post. I think you need to be a family member or a councillor to get a job there.

If SSE is so committed to this project, how come VE use a private PR company, a retired shoe salesman and a part time councillor / office worker to promote their project? SSE have their own press department. Their own PR machine. Neither is in evidence just now. For other projects they employ local liaison contacts. Where are they in this case? Is it the case they are happy for Viking Energy (and the SIC / Charitable Trust) to do all the running, deal with PR and front the operation on the off-chance it ever gets planning permission. I don't get the impression they are putting much effort into promoting this project. As the biggest windfarm in Europe, you'd think they would be shouting about it from the rooftops. Their shyness is very telling.

Pardon me for interrupting the ArabiaTerra show, but on this thread he is banging on the right drum. WEATHER on any particular day does not equal the CLIMATE for that whole region! Weather is an event which happens at one moment in time and in one place. It is very changeable and very dynamic. Climate is the cumulative pattern of variation over a very long period of time. I was waiting till some wag said that we couldn't have climate change because it was snowing today, and one poster has delivered as expected. If human activity can't change climate, why are big modern cities always warmer than the surrounding areas? The reason some folk are so keen to attack climate change theory is that the implications of it mean that how we live, and how we do things are simply not sustainable. Fear and denial are powerful drivers. It's probably human nature to deny a problem exists if the means to tackle it results in a fundamental shift in how a society and economy conducts itself. Ancient societies may have resorted to futile but powerful gestures to address their own problems - ritual, sacrifice, scapegoating, building huge monuments (like Easter Island for example). We on the other hand propose windmills in daft places at great social, economic and environmental cost, but want to leave everything else unchanged.