davie-L

It’s not just the Gulberwick side that has issues, on a regular basis I have near misses at the Scalloway Side of the Black Gaet. People exiting the junctions should stop before driving on to the main road in front of cars travelling at 60 mph.

Just because your not looking in your rear view mirror doesn’t mean there is a car/can/truck having to decelerate very quickly so as not to hit you. So many times they pull out and gently accelerate up to 30mph completely oblivious to the potential carnage behind them.

IMHO both ends of the Black Gaet should have stop signs and vehicles have to stop and check the oncoming traffic before pulling out.

Would be a great solution but won't be financially viable, reason being Scottish Enterprise is involved and generally only help projects that don't have a hope in being successful or hand out 'grants' to multimillion pound companies who don't IMO really need it. 

 

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/secret-firm-handed-500k-public-12828530

 

I'm not a big supporter of these agencies issuing grants but believe a loan would be more suited and the money could be 'recycled' as it is repaid. 

By recycled I mean reused with other projects. Giving a higher interest/higher risk/delayed repayment loan would allow projects to go ahead with the serious companies and hopefully put off the big companies who don't really need to be subsidised but the public purse.

Would be a great solution but won't be financially viable, reason being Scottish Enterprise is involved and generally only help projects that don't have a hope in being successful or hand out 'grants' to multimillion pound companies who don't IMO really need it. 

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/secret-firm-handed-500k-public-12828530

I'm not a big supporter of these agencies issuing grants but believe a loan would be more suited and the money could be 'recycled' as it is repaid. 

 

Great to see the SNP 'door people' standing at the polling stations, a bit intimidating no doubt for some voters.

Not sure why you would say it was great to see them despite accepting it could be a bit intimidating for some voters.

 

This over the top approach by the SNP, with lamp post posters, flying in all the top brass, bringing in the foot soldiers, folk at doors of polling stations leaflets after leaflet, over planning etc etc, likely ended up having a negative effect. I think the SNP let Tom down by their over the top approach. This push it down your throat approach might work in Edinburgh, but it’s not the way we’re used to it up here. The top brass in their desperation to win the seat, took over his campaign and I think that lost him votes.

 

The reason I said it was great was that it gave me a chance to debate the positives/negatives of supporting SNP directly with one of their canvassers. I didn't feel intimidated but my 17 year old son said he didn't feel comfortable and wouldn't have known how to react if confronted during his first voting experience with these SNP 'door people' loitering around. 

Completely agree on your comments on the over the top approach from the SNP top brass and Tom Wills possibly losing votes due to this. Will be interesting to see how the people of Shetland will be punished for not voting SNP.

Great to see the SNP 'door people' standing at the polling stations, a bit intimidating no doubt for some voters.

 

Infact the policy of the Lib Dems in calling for another referendum will, I suspect, serve them well. They are savvy enough to understand that the "will" of the majority of people is now undoubtedly to remain in the EU and they are hoping to capitalise on that at the next election.

The results of local elections in England and Wales seem to suggest the Lib Dems Brexit policy is indeed serving them well with a 700 seat (+108%) gain. The only other firmly anti Brexit party, the Greens, gained 265 seats (+273%) while the Tories shed 1300 (- 27%). Brexit champions UKIP were annihilated shedding 145 seats, a near total wipeout at -82%.

I don’t think it’s support of the Lib Dem’s policies, more of a disapproval to the ‘Cons’ and Labour being entirely useless. Just have to look back at how ineffective Lib Dem’s were as the ‘Cons’ lapdog.

Works fine for me and a nice new looking set up, well done Shetlink Admin Team.

'Is it also possible that certain shoals of mackerel are genetically programmed to come back to
certain geographical areas every year and so if you remove a whole shoal there are none to come
back to that area.' 

Interesting theory and would be keen to hear if there has been any studies into this.

The decline of Salmon in Scottish rivers has been documented for the last 50-60 years and although Salmon farming is a relatively young industry being started in the late 70's, can the industry be the sole reason for the decline? 

What we can do is use the Salmon farming industry to try and either help reverse of slow the decline, there was an interesting project carried out to restock River Garry:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/1465130/ground-breaking-project-to-restore-salmon-population-in-highland-river/

Possibly not the correct thread for this next comment but as you state there is a lot of Norwegian and foreign control in the Salmon Industry and possibly the fishing industry. I know that The Norwegian owners have huge support from their government and banks and we should be thankful they keep investing here.

What is clear is that the UK government, Scottish government and UK banks have had little interest in the fishing and aquaculture industries and now these industries are major economic contributers they have jumped on the bandwagon. 

'Scottish Salmon is now Scotland's Largest Food Export' is all you read now that the Scottish government are finally taking an interest, pity these industries weren't based in the 'centre of the universe' (London or Edinburgh) then they would have taken an interest 20 years ago.

One fact we can't take away from the Aquaculture and fishing industry is that they are more important to the Shetland economy than Oil & Gas, Agriculture, Tourism and knitwear combined. 

Note: I dont mean for the last statement as an attack on the other industries, they are all important to the Shetland economy!

Brochbuilder, I have to agree that there is less mackerel inshore compared to 20+ years ago but could this be due to climate change and the fish migrating further north and further out to sea?

When it comes to the decline in wild salmon numbers what could the reason for the decline in the rivers in the East coast of Scotland, there are no farms there so can they still be blamed.

I will declare an interest as I’ve been involved in the salmon industry for 20+ years but hear the same claims time and again with little or no data to support either the Salmon farming industry or Anti Salmon farming industry.

https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/scientist-blames-mackerel-for-wild-salmon-decline/

Simple solution, increase the Mackerel quota and slow the decline in wild Salmon. 

Look a like our 'educated' and forward thinking council are a bit behind the times. There is a good chance they will have to remove them due to increased pollution!!

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/09/speed-bumps-could-disappear-uk-roads-part-new-plan-cut-pollution/amp/

Any comments/opinions on the Market Cross tree decorations this year?

Considering the creative talent in Shetland could they have been used?

Might be the Ocean Drifters that the Shetland news mentioned on the 9th August, nothing beats a bit of beach combing!!

Hi Will s,  I thought there was a breakthrough on Wednesday to Friday when all was quiet(er) from the boat. Unfortunately the noise returned on Friday night but I was away overnight (Saturday) so didn't hear last night. Upon our return to the house this afternoon we were so disheartened to hear that the noise was louder, watching Wimbledon I had to turn the volume quite high to drown out the drone of the boat. We have contacted the Environmental health department but they had not had any complaints and they couldn't act on 'marine issues'.

I will be in contact with the community council so thanks for that advice, I appreciate we live near a harbour but it wasn't  been an issue until a few weeks back so something must have changed.

Thanks for your replies, I initially thought it was possibly due to the 'calm' weather but even on windy days where the sound should be blown away from us we can still hear a rumble from the funnel. I wouldn't normally complain but as this is affecting all my family I think I will try and take it further. 

Thanks again

Hi all, 

just wondering if anyone else has noticed how noisy the Gemini in Scalloway Harbour has been over the last few weeks? there has been no problems up till then and was even quite nice to look at, unfortunately now there is a constant drone (from the engines and not me) and it is making sleeping difficult at night. We even have a slight vibration in parts of the house from the noise, just thought i would check before taking it any further.

Thanks in advance