Carlos

While not getting into individudal failings..... Does the lack of a party system in local politics in Shetland mean councilors are too interested in what will get them re-elected (local-local issues) to the detriment of what is best for Shetland?

Sure, just some links so people can see what is supposed to be the local plan. Then it's clearer if planners or councilors go against it.

Chinese balance skills http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuUzuklkoU

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/developmentplans/ShetlandStructurePlan1.asp http://www.shetland.gov.uk/developmentplans/shetlandlocalplan.asp http://www.shetland.gov.uk/housing/LocalStrategy.asp

It is logical in that it carrys a lot of traffic and is an expensive ferry service to run. Downside is that there is 5 times as much water to cross as there is to Bressay, and it is 5 times as deep. Tunnel would be the only option and it'd cost quite a bit....

As far as I know the NATM has been very widely used worldwide. Because it tries to make an efficient (as cheap as possible) design and removes a lot of the belt and braces approach it leaves a lot more oppertunity for the designer to get it wrong. There is nothing inherently bad in proposing that as a tunnel method, it would just be that you would have to make sure and get it right. It would seem though that it is a method where the final costs are more difficult to estimate in advance, as you have to wait and see what kid of rock / groundwater you hit along the way.......

If you're not on the bus then you're not responsable for any of it's CO2 But yes..... depending where you take the limits of the system you're look at you can get different answers....... always read the fine print

Well..... overall, but like I was saying it is comparing two different things. The CO2 you output brething is balanced by your eatign of plants. You cannot output any more carbon or oxygen than you already took in from the same system. The bus on the other hand is outputing CO2 that was slowly removed from the ecosystem over millions of years and previously contained and is now being put back much quicker..... Scooping water up out the sink and tipping it back in will never make it overflow, but turning the tap on will.

An average emission of near 10 l/sec would seem unlikely.... Also human emission of CO2 is part of a closed cycle.... it's balanced by the plants we eat having taken in O2 and carbon. Burning fossil fules could be seen as part of a closed cycle too.... but if it is normally a very long term cycle and if we are emiting a lot in one go.... things change a little.

Well, you can maybe see as your bill will not being as much higher as it might have been otherwise.... although that would likely apply nationwide...... or you could hope that it would bring enough money to the local ecconomy that you would get better/cheaper services than otherwise..... In terms of writting a smaller number on the cheque I don't think it is ever going that way...... unless you want to put up your own micro turbine....

There is certainly scope for energy efficiency savings, reductions would need punative taxing or a real change in the social outlook I would say. But, even reduced use and increased efficiency have monetary costs and evironmental costs too. Suppose we replace all streetlights with computer controlled ones that only come on when they are needed. There is the cost of doing it, and then there is the environmental costs in terms of manufacturing all those new lights, and disposing of the old ones before they are worn out, and on and on..... to be balanced against the reduced use of electricity.... the true cost of which will depend on how it is generated..... over a long long time...... There will be projects that have less costs than others, but to rule out any one in particular you would need to really know the full costs over the long term.

Anybody have any suggestions for power generation schemes which would cause less overall enviromental damage? If we don't have a minimum figure to benchmark schemes against will we see every new option as "too damaging" in some way or other and carry on with the coal and gas? No doubt the interconnector would have a large inital impact, but it should have a long lifespan too.... the impact of wind generators may be large in terms of road construction, but the roads would have a life of 5-10 generations of wind turbines.... so how would you allow for that? Wave and tidal energy plants would seem to require the largest scale of construction, what impacts would be expected from those?

I think he actually used the word "misled", which I imagine is not a great move from the legal point of view when effectively naming individuals who might be getting sick of being stuck in the middle of it all.... My reading was more like there had been mistakes on both sides at various points through the project with design changes to previously discussed layouts and proceedures not always being followed 100%. In the end he makes no judgement on any engineering merits, no judgements on even who is "right" or "wrong" in anything, other than saying that the LPA had not done anything that signed away their fundamental right to do what they want in the harbour. Great report it seems, everybody can read it there own way

I don't believe that. Management of a big structure does not have to be any more complicated than calling in the specialist structural engineer for his annual visit and paying a specialist sub contractor to do the work he recommends. As per Burra and Trondra, it costs money, but it does not need more council people. If there is a political will to set up more management than that, it can always happen, but I don't see the requirement. There is just not that much to manage. If you're more worried about politcial manouvers than engineering then you might be nearer. Nope, that was what I was asking for. I seem to remember the 2000ish fixed link study had quite high maintenance costs for a Bressay tunnel, but would like to know if there are any accepted figures about for what is invovled in a Bressay style tunnel. I can't read the Norwegian figures very well, but I think they are showing rough averages of 50,000 NOK/m for construction costs and 300NOK/m/year for maintenance costs, so 2/3% per year?.... maybe £250,000 per year maintenance for a Bressay tunnel?

Bridges, ferries and tuinnels all need maintenance too, with various costs. Maintenance of a Bressay bridge (or tunnel) does not have to need any more management than does maintenance of the Burra and Trondra bridges at the moment, but the work will obviously cost money, and has to be considered in overall costs. I've heard tunnel maintenance costs placed at 3-4 times those of the bridge, but not seen much mention of figures lately... been anything out there?

Question. Assuming that a tunnel would cost about £30M, do you think it should be built by the council, or should we continue with the ferry as is?

The full judgement http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2007csoh05.html

I'm not sure... but the council probably has some say as a coastal protection authority? So a bloody minded "Well, you can dredge, but you can't dump it on the shore" possition might be possible. Not sure where the LPA would plan to reclaim land with this, and no idea if that is the SIC thinking though I think the reason that there has not been a compromise is that it would cost one or the other, or both, money and maybe mean less benefit to what they want to do. Each side believes they are in the right, and so it goes on....

Way back in the dim and distant past of 2000ish there was a questionaire that went to everybody in Bressay to find out how the bridge would affect them, and the last question was "How do you feel about a bridge?" with a 5 point scale, "very opposed" to "very in favour". Whether that was enough like a referendum, or whever it should have been a yes/no only option has been debated since then. At least on those answers it came out about 60:40 in favour of the bridge. Again, whether that is enough of a margin..... etc etc But yes, the bridge vs the ferry comes out pretty even, the extra rational for the fixed link is more about savings on other services and the oppertunity to open up harbour development. If the bridge is not built the ferry will continue, and as long as goverment funding does not change then it will not make much difference to what Shetland spends.

It's an immersed tunnel in Virginia USA, about 1600m long and cost $126M..... Bressay sound at the bridge site is something like 400m long.... http://www.roadstothefuture.com/I664_VA_MMMBT.html

Shortest crossing would be via Bigga, 1200m of water on one side 1000m on the other.... like 2 Golden Gate bridges back to back..... except over deep water so the towers would end up further apart.... longest side would be the 8th largest spanning bridge in the world..... short side would only be number 20....... With the water so deep a causway would need millions of m3 of rock....as well as blocking an international seaway...... and whatever disruption you'd do to the marine ecology.... If you're going to do it you'd have to go with a tunnel...... and deal with the crushed and fractured rock from the geological fault that is in the middle of the sound......

It would likely make sense. It will likely not get done because of the costs. Unst - Yell would be managable, but Yell - Mainland is a big big project. I can understand that a fixed link might let somebody who lives on one of the islands and works on another/the mainland stay in their house instead of having to move, but there's also the reverse that while they stay in the house, now the Unst children can go to school in Yell, or the family can shop in Brae.... if you change something it will cause other changes, and they might not all be the ones you want.

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If the houses were built there, and it was clear from the start, no car owners allowed to be tenants, then people should be able to decide for themselves if that was a deal they wanted to take, if they could fit in with walking/buses. If they decided they couldn't make it work for them, then they should be able to stay on the lst for the next suitable place somewhere car friendly. Much the same as giving somebody a 1 bedroom flat is not a ban on them ever having kids, just another factor that they might consider overall.

Not sure what works out better here... there are limited options and they all have drawbacks... which drawbacks you prefer will likely depend on your circumstances. There wasn't enough on street parking spaces at this developement to cover the requirements. Planning would have been refused on a "normal" application. Putting the parking on the site would have halved the number of houses. The ecconomics would likely then have come out that you should build high-end flats. As planning was refused anyway the housing will likely end up on the outskirts of town, where there is enough space to get the number of parking spaces. Which would be a fine option if you had a car, but a lot worse it you don't Should there not be housing in the centre with no parking if people want it? And housing further out, where there is space, with parking for people that wanted that? I don't see any philosophical issue with offering people the choice between the 2 and letting them pick whichever suits them better. Practicall issues, sure, but there always problems with those.