Letters Page

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Flooding at Elgin

SIR, – About seven years ago, Elgin sustained major flooding when the River Lossie burst its banks. There was much talk in and out of the council about the remedies that should be applied and I am told that £2.5million was spent on fees.

In that inundation, my company sustained a loss at its Elgin branch of nearly £1.4million and, not long after that incident, a second flooding occurred which fortunately did not enter the building.

Last Friday, my Elgin colleagues were roused from their beds at 4am to evacuate the business stocks and furniture as the Lossie overflowed its banks and flooded our site up to the doors of the building.

During the evening, it rose further and flooded the building.

At the bridge beside the cathedral, the water at noon was within two inches of the top of the north bank and, had it breached there, Johnstons Woollen Mill would have been inundated. I am advised that this overflow took place later; the bank held, but the area was flooded.

I call upon the councillors to detail the works at Elgin which have been carried out to improve the river defences.

It all appears a matter of talk and little action. How much longer are we to tolerate a council so supine in the face of this challenge? Or should we tell them to resign now?

Francis Hamilton,

chairman,

Macrae & Dick,

Inverness.

Plans for Union Terrace Gardens

SIR, – I write in response to Norman G. Marr’s letter (the Press and Journal, September 7) headed “Plans for Union Terrace Gardens”.

The “amusing” and “pathetic” plea was made last week as part of the I love UTG campaign, which has at its core the retention of the gardens and support for the best outcome for the site.

Sir Ian Wood’s “yet to be detailed” plans were outlined in the feasibility study published in June.

The plans for the contemporary art centre development were brought forward by a partnership between Peacock Visual Arts and Aberdeen City Council, with many restrictions made on the final design, to make sure that the build is sympathetic and has no long-lasting damaging effects to the garden, and so fits in with the Aberdeen Local Plan (2008), something that is overlooked in Sir Ian’s vision for the area.

The art centre development has passed its own feasibility study, achieved full planning permission, three quarters of its funding, and passed a public consultation process, all of which took two years to come around. This is hardly “rushed”, as Mr Marr suggests.

I am in agreement that we cannot lose the gardens, which are vital to the historic context of the city.

The I love UTG campaign is striving to maintain the gardens and ensure that they are not destroyed in the wake of these new plans, something which should not be undermined as “amusing” or “pathetic”.

Fraser Denholm,

136 Crown Street,

Aberdeen.

Next move in incinerator debate

SIR, – Many views have been put forward by your readers regarding plans for waste incinerator plants. With Highland Council now favouring Peterhead to continue receiving waste from Inverness and turning down a planning application to build a waste incineration plant in the Inverness area, just how do we now go forward?

Large amounts of all types of waste are being collected on a daily basis from homes, businesses, hospitals and offshore installations, and being put direct to landfill.

Is this not bad?

Many types of onshore and offshore waste are being processed at the Dales Industrial Estate at Peterhead. It might be a good idea for people who signed a petition to outlaw any waste incinerator plant to come forward and suggest other ways of getting rid of our daily waste in a friendly, controlled manner that does not pollute the atmosphere or the soil, and does, in fact, save some of the planet’s depleted fossil fuels, which all of us are now using at an alarming rate.

Gavin Elder,

10 Mallard Drive,

Peterhead.

Health and safety laws

SIR, – In your editorial Comment (September 5) headed “Health and safety police strike again”, you take the uninformed but popular option of vilifying the “health and safety zealot” who was, after all, only doing his job. The “zealot" has to take the abuse resulting from complying with laws made by parliament and interpreted by the judiciary, however stupid that interpretation may appear.

Is it time that adverse comment was made on a legal system which supports a person injured in the course of lawbreaking, by providing legal aid to make successful claims for compensation against the innocent party?

This is the same legal system which has manifestly failed to bring to trial and convict individuals who break health and safety laws and imposes, many years after the event, insignificant penalties on those convicted of health and safety offences which are too often associated with fatalities.

George A. Wood,

2 Harrow Road,

Aberdeen.

Request for help with war research

SIR, – Since the early 70s, our research group, Friesche Luchtvaart Documentatie 1939-1945, has taken an interest in the history of the air war over the northern part of the Netherlands during World War II.

In co-operation with the Stichting Missing Airmen Memorial Foundation and the local Resistance Museum, we aim to gather as much information as possible about the aircraft crashes and their aftermath in order to make a historically correct reconstruction of events.

On the evening of September 7, 1941, Wellington R1798 of 115 Squadron RAF took off from Marham for a bombing mission to Berlin. At about 4.45am the next morning, the bomber was intercepted by a German nightfighter, flown by Helmut Lent. The aircraft was shot down and crashed near the village of Drachtstercompagnie in the Netherlands. All the crew were killed. They were buried in this village.

We received a question about Ian Patrick McHaffie Gordon on our website. His parents were Roger Samuel McHaffie Gordon and Anne Strother McHaffie Gordon, of Nairnside, Invernesshire. We would be very pleased if anyone could assist us in tracing relatives. I can be contacted by e-mail at d.drijver@friesmuseum.nl or at the address below.

Douwe S. Drijver,

projectmedewerker,

Verzetsmuseum Friesland,

Turfmarkt 11,

8911 KS Leeuwarden.