crofter

Forcing everyone to crawl around in a lower gear will contribute far more to climate change than nippin oot ta Voe for a pizza!

In my mind the main issues facing children in Shetland now and in the near future are education and mental health (especially for teenagers) which are both in dire need of funding/better management. Drugs is also a bigger danger due to the uncontrolled and illicit nature of the trade. 
 
Combine poor mental health with drugs and/or excessive drinking THEN you have a problem. A few teenagers going on the piss at social events is not a major issue IMHO.

I understand the Lidl on Forvik has got all flavours of Pringles on sale for 50% off. Also a massive stock of Christmas sprouts.     

man was a minister of state he lied about a dishonest act. if our ministers will not be Honorable and admit misconduct then we cant ever trust them. if for a moment you think he is sorry over his actions your mistaken. he is just upset that he was caught. 

If you need to lie, cheat and smear to win your seat ( the judges ruled Alistair did this ) then good luck to him.
I find the gloating amusing, why would Alistair Carmichaels opponents be upset to be up against a proven liar and his apologists?
I hope there are many more like me who would like someone with honesty, integrity and honour representing me.

The Law is the Law, The Law states children must be educated.
 
Skerries Secondary was an excellent place to learn. The children have ended up with an inferior education in closing a Secondary School, that was sharing the costs with the primary school, we the tax payer have ended up paying more, as the Headteacher with her supporting staff, was teaching both Primary and Secondary. 
 
Nothing was saved iin closing the secondary, and I want to know why Hayfield House can get away with this social injustice?
 
The children have ended up with lower attendance, less physical exercise, and less subjects, and less time with family.
 
At the same time increasing the costs to the taxpayer, as we now pay for the boarding, travel, carers, and then the disruption to the children's weekends.
 
Bottom line a good school was closed, and it cost us more money, and Hayfield House lied  to the general public.
 
Get me the accounts, and it will show, costs have increased.

The Salmon farm was an Organic farm, and profitable, but just lacked the working capital that so many small businesses need.
( by the way I believe the Salmon industry as a whole is going the wrong way, it should be going down the Organic route, and the TOXIC stuff that is produced worldwide)
 
Skerries Secondary children despite the waffle and lies told by Hayfield House, the children of Skerries Secondary School when they had a Headteacher in place, they had all the important subjects i e Maths, English, R.E, Physics, Chemistry, Music,French, Spanish, Competitive Physical Education,In fact the swimming records in Shetland Times reported 152 full  lengths by most of the pupils speaks volumes on fitness levels.This was a complete school, and was closed on false savings figures, and someone who should ask Helen Budge to deny that they did not save money in closing the Secondary School, and prove it. We know Dr Wills cant come and look us in the eye. He talks a good game, but does not deliver the proof.
 
Helen Budge I believe you are surrounded by liars, or you are inept, and in on the scam of closing the Skerries Secondary School.
 
Facts are those children's attendance dropped dramatically going to Anderson High, plus the biggest problem in education is poor parents, and these parents have had to leave the Island to get work, this is a hard working community that has had a social injustice decision made against them, at the cost of family life, and a poorer education.
 
Resign you parasites in Hayfield House, do Shetland a favour and go get a proper job.

I have to disagree about closing things. There is such a thing as community. Also a right to live where you want and bring up your bairns there to.
It seems again that communities on da Isles get a raw deal.

A death by a thousand cuts.....
 
Close the Secondary School......(Very little incentive for families to settle in Skerries)........Close the Salmon Farm........(More families move out, and some essential workers)..............Skerries Flights No longer SAFE as the short runway needs Firecrew..........(Now we have less options of travel)........Dr probably wont waste a whole day visiting Skerries........
 
I expect Skerries will now need major reinvestment to make the place viable again........Nice one Dr Wills you deceived your fellow councilors with your emotive speech, aided by the inept Education bullies.
 
Dr Wills, Gerry Edwards, Vaila Wisheart, Audry Edwards, and a few others DECEIVED the SIC, you saved NOTHING in closing the SKerries Secondary School, if anything you have increased the costs. 
 
FACTS are the primary school now, is running at the same cost as when both Secondary,and Primary School was open.
 
If any of the names above had any HONOUR they should resign for telling LIES.
 
SAVING £73000 . 
 
Skerries are still waiting for DR Wills to look us all in the eye.

Pretty sure the Sale Room is not closing. They have been given notice to move out of their current premises next year but are looking for new premises to keep it going. Can't find anything on their facebook page to confirm that though.

If this process of condemned structures rising from the dead is for real, we could be quids in! We won't need to do all the restoration work on the Town Hall (bet's that a consultant wrote that plan?).
 
The great thing about Government is there is NO accountability. It is unlikely you could round up any of the culprits (councillors or employees) involved in the last move, nor penalise o hold them responsible in any way. It's just Government money anyway, and there's always lots more where that came from, just ask anyone (anyone even remember the Norrona, Bressay Bridge, AHS 1,2 and 3, sacked Chief Executive and all the other old stuff)?
 
And now we can return to the Library, back where it always should have been all along!

This is one of the great problems of our time as I see it. At every level Government representatives, employees and officials are not held accountable for wasting public funds. In private business if employees squander vast sums they are disciplined or sacked, public money should be held under more scrutiny not less! 
 
I hope that if Wir Shetlands campaign is a success and we can set up a new Government for Shetland then a large degree of accountability can be built in to the system, it is no less than the public deserve! 

Agree with all the above, if it's against the rules then the rules are stupid.
Businesses closing all over the place and they won't let a proven entrepreneur start one up.
It's a pizza nonsense.

Surely this is no further for customers to get to than Kergord Mill and does not follow any earlier precedents that have been set on similar developments.
 
Maybe the cooncil do not want to have any more private enterprises competing against the likes of Kergord, Hays Dock, Islesburgh, Mareel and the like?
 
With fingers in all these pies, they should declare and interest on any decision.
 
If the provision of adequate car parking is a material condition of such a development, it is obviously going to be used by cars that drive to the place.
 
When there has often been a handout culture for developments such as this in Shetland, it is very disappointing that someone willing to invest their own, time energy and capital in this is knocked down at the first hurdle.
 
 
 
 

Complete guff. Throwing around terms like "kangaroo court" shows how utterly blinded some are on this issue. We had top judicial authorities decide whether or not there was a legitimate grievance to be heard, and they were clear in stating there was, under longstanding laws relating to Representation of the People. You need to set aside the fact you disagree with it and understand that - whether he is found 'guilty' or not - those pursuing the claim were doing so via legitimate legal means. That is not a "witch hunt" in my eyes and I find it childish to suggest otherwise. 
 
Again, I'm not reading the rest of your waffle. 

Right. I wish I'd realised this was where things were going as if I'd known we were just going to end up claiming Scottish courts are on the whole useless I'd have let things lie a lot sooner. 
 
I'll amend my original point to say those who disagreed with the original petition but who recognise and respect the authority of our country's legal system. I was admittedly naive of me to overlook that this forum would have a few members not matching that caveat. 

I'd consider your suggestion ass about face. In a (so-called) civilised and democratic society, especially in a situation such as this where public money is being thrown round in immense quantities, that the onus is on the developers to approach and engage with their critics, not the other way around.
 
The developers are the ones proposing all the changes, and as such exclusively shoulder the burden of negotiating their own way forward, objectors are simply seeking that the status quo of Millenia standing is left as intact as possible. They have nothing to "prove", nor defend, as what they seek, is what is.
 
Its arrogant, and patronising, and highly offensive that a developer thinks they can just dismiss their critics with nothing more than thinly veiled sarcasm and gestures akin to how someome would flick a moth off their shoulder, which by all outward apperances has been VE's attitude to date.

Redburn, Bigton. Autumn 1978 - The saturated hillside gave way under the weight of the road, taking the road with it for approx 25 yards.
 
Now that that irrelevance has been put to bed, on with the pressing point. The standard you're setting here is unrealistic, wherever a slip crosses a road the road may or may not have been the cause, or a contributory factor, or of no relevance whatsoever, and there is no way of proving which one unless the slip is witnessed from inception to completion. It is not something you can sift through the debris and forensically trace back to source, the evidence to do so with is long since lost.
 
Slips can and do start anywhere on a slope, and I would postulate that when one starts immediately above a road cut out, that even if it would have occured anyway, common sense dicates that by having removed the material from where the road has been constructed, that slip is given every encouragement to happen, and be as large and violent as possible, as you no longer have any material downhill from it providing resistance, only a void.
 
What there is though is clear evidence that a road most definitely impacts the flow rate, direction, and concentration of both water run-off and debris, which in turn dictates largely, if not completely what occurs downhill from that point.

Easy - if it is uphill of the road, the road has cut through/across the layer of peat on the hill destabilising it and contributes to it breaking away above the road and flowing down over it.  Seems like common sense to me, of course the 'headline' has also been a contributing factor, I didn't say the building of the roads was the main cause.

If there were no risk posed by the windfarm and its infrastructure, why then was a Peat Stability Assessment a requirement of the Environmental Impact Assessment? Anybody that thinks that the scale of engineering works won't have an impact on the hydrology and structure of peat in the vicinity is turning a blind eye to the inevitable. The government itself recognizes the risks: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2006/12/21162303/0
 
You only have to look at what happened at Derrybrien in Ireland for an example of a very bad case scenario.
Ok, careful design, good site management and environmental control can help prevent disasters, but what worries me is that the assessments done for Viking Energy conclude that overall there is little to be worried about regarding peat stability, while the frequency of peat slides recently, within the windfarm area, indicate otherwise. Also it is now acknowledged by peatland experts that there is much yet to be learned about such phenomena as peat pipes and how they affect stability, and also the method of assessment may not be appropriate as it was developed for mineral soils.
I would like Viking Energy to give their opinion about the Mid Kame peat slide. They were warned that this area might be susceptible by a peatland ecologist. Yet the ES assessment identified a site at the south end of the kame as having insignificant hazard ranking.

Yes, I have mixed feelings about this.
 
The man/woman in the black pick-up wasn't doing themselves any favours but it looks like the silver car was being irresponsible too, even as is suggested was speeding up to prevent the black pick-up passing.
 
The silver car should have acknowledged the dangerous situation, done the right thing and slowed down enough for the black pick-up to pass.

Wind is too diviseive a topic to bring to the table at this stage other than to say that it devolution will finaly give us the power to hold a referendum on the subject so that the Shetand people can decide.

The oil and gas should be seen as a medium term finite bonus, not a basis for long term revenue/survival. Shetlands REAL natural resource is the fish which, if managed correctly, will never run out. 

Capeesh it is not up to Westminster how we choose to govern ourselves. They are quick to point out that the Falkland Islands have the right to self determination in order to stop them being absorbed by Argentina, it would be highly hypocritical of them to attempt to deny us self governance if it is what the majority of Shetlanders want.
 
The land and resources here belong to the people who live here. If we want to achieve British Overseas Territory status from the UK we may have to agree to allowing them to receive a percentage of oil and gas revenues (or some similar deal) in order to pay for services provided by them but this will be a negotiation. 

If your opinion is that it can't work you are entitled to that opinion but I would advise that you at least wait until you see what emerges from the campaign before you make up your mind, seemingly based upon some assumption that we are owned by the politicians in London and what they say goes. 

That choice isn't Westminster's to make.