SIR, – Aberdeenshire Council’s school transport policy is a myth. I have just seen the joint report, which states that the council agrees “in principle” regarding seatbelts. No firm commitment at all.
The council has the power to dictate the terms of its own bus contracts, but refuses to use it. Why?
Far from being implemented, it means radical discrimination.
If and when these laws regarding seatbelts ever happen, they won’t apply to school transport that uses buses or coaches when they are also being operated as a local bus service.
This covers Gardenstown and I am sure other areas. So some children will have seatbelts, others will not.
In Scotland, 10 out of 31 authorities use seatbelts in some form or other, obviously using commonsense that some protection is better than none.
Do parents not require that when their children board a school bus they should have the same protection as they do in the family car?
Does it take a death or serious accident to sort this mess out?
Ron Beaty,
15 Craigen Terrace,
Gardenstown.
SIR, – I read almost every day about the budget problems of Aberdeen City Council and am constantly amazed by the details.
I can see at a glance where the council could make huge savings, as, indeed, can anyone with an ounce of commonsense.
The Bon Accord baths is closed and the Linksfield Pool is operating reduced hours to save money, yet if you come out of Linksfield Academy and look to your right, what do you see? An enormous building site where a new sports centre is being built, incorporating, I believe, “an Olympic-size swimming pool”.
I read about a proposal to spend £3million on a new “cultural” centre in Union Terrace Gardens. I suggest the council spends a fraction of the money converting the vaults under Union Terrace into artists' workshops and restoring the Victorian toilets so that the gardens can enjoy a new lease of life.
I would also be tempted to cancel the proposed multimillion-pound move of the council HQ from a perfectly adequate office block into the Marischal College building, and possibly even sell the college, thus bringing money into the bank.
Thankfully, I live in Aberdeenshire and so it is not my money the council is squandering, but I still sit shaking my head in disbelief.
I have to wonder if the councillors would be quite so carefree if they were spending their own money?
Ian Micklethwaite,
40 Redcloak Drive,
Stonehaven.
SIR, – Tony Comerford (“Decline of bird populations”, Letters, September 2) writes that buzzards are predominantly scavengers, living on rabbits, and that they do not take lapwing, curlew or oystercatcher chicks. Mr Comerford goes on to say that, in his 30 years of observation, he has never seen buzzards eating chicks of other birds.
So it was interesting that I should find in Birds of Prey in a Changing Environment, which was published by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, British Ornithologists’ Union and Scottish Natural Heritage, that at buzzard nests on Colonsay, the following prey items were found: lapwing, oystercatcher, curlew, robin, song thrush, wren, kittiwake, blackbird and many more species. A similar pattern was found by researchers on Langholm Moor in the 1990s.
Further, in British Birds of Prey, by Leslie Brown, it states clearly that buzzards monitored in the New Forest fed on young corvids and pigeons and that young jackdaws, jays, stock doves, song thrushes and wood pigeons were found, in large quantities, in nests. Leslie Brown says that many of the birds taken by buzzards were young that had recently left the nest. Species taken irregularly included green woodpecker, pheasant, woodcock, magpie, chaffinch, greater spotted woodpecker, tawny owl and carrion crow.
The buzzard is a versatile hunter and cannot be assumed to prey on just rabbits or scavenge for food.
Katrina J. Candy,
Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust,
Couston,
Newtyle,
Perthshire.
SIR, – Now that the government, through its failure to regulate fuel costs, has created a situation in which a whole host of families from a variety of backgrounds can’t meet their mortgage payments, it is now intending to use some of the extra tax it has collected to bail them out.
This makes the government the good guys in the eyes of those who are struggling and makes it look like it is a caring government to the rest of us.
Or does it?
There cannot be many organisations that can fleece the taxpayer on the one hand and then use some the revenue collected to provide support for those who, having been fleeced, cannot manage to keep a roof over their heads.
Nigel Brazier,
Kennel Cottage,
Lairshill,
Newmachar.
SIR, – Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to order the abolition of car-parking charges at most NHS hospitals will be welcomed by many people.
What is curious is that she used the Thatcherite rhetoric, saying that it will protect the sacred NHS principle of keeping healthcare “free at the point of delivery”.
Mrs Thatcher used this phrase ad nauseam and politicians from all parties have used it since. It begs just one burning question: Which of the parties will make it a reality by abolishing all charges for dentistry?
R.J. Ardern,
Southside Road,
Inverness.