Sir, – Do car alarms cut the mustard? They certainly don’t appear to cut car crime.
The noise should deter would-be thieves but whenever I’ve encountered a car alarm sounding off, no one has been near the vehicle. The siren attracts attention but since many incidents are false alarms, they tend to be completely ignored – if you can ignore the odious noise nuisance. Please let us live in peace and quiet.
Bill Maxwell, Mar Place, Keith.
Heat pumps for ‘green’ Holyrood
Sir, – To achieve net-zero by 2050, Nicola Sturgeon states “ it is essential that countries turn promises into action, and it is crucial that states and devolved governments play our full part”.
What a great opportunity to show leadership by turning Bute House and the Scottish Parliament green and install heat pumps with no alternative form of heating available as we will have.
I wait with bated breath.
Major John Clark, Raigmore Avenue, Inverness.
Jail building could teach good lesson
Sir, – I know little of jails so this letter may reveal how little. The building of a new jail in Inverness should provide a useful training opportunity for inmates, and on release the work experience should lead to future employment.
At my Dublin grammar school we pupils wished for a swimming pool so we built one. The staff tried to ignore it but guided by an elderly mason it happened.
If we lads could do that, inmates could knock up a jail.
Geoff Leet, Thurso.
Acorn cluster has so much to offer
Sir, – It is with mounting disbelief, frustration and anger I read the Acorn CCS project at St Fergus would be relegated to a second phase bid. Sir Ian Wood has half a century of knowledge and experience at the forefront of offshore oil and gas technology and as a prime mover in the Acorn project, who better to make the compelling case for the north-east?
As Sir Ian points out, the Scottish Cluster is “oven-ready” – storage capacity, infrastructure and workforce – which makes not just environmental but economic sense for St Fergus to be a “Track 1 cluster for the 2020s”.
So much for “levelling up”. We must depend on our own broad shoulders.
DW Lowden, Hutchison Terrace, Mannofield, Aberdeen.
PR system does not get my vote
Sir, – Further to the letter from Peter Ovenstone, I disagree fundamentally with every point.
Firstly proportional representation has been a disaster in every country which operates it, resulting in elected parties having little or no majority to effectively run the country.
Italy is a perfect example which has had a new government almost every year since the mid-1940s.
It has also caused an intolerable situation here where the unelected Greens now determine policy by holding the desperate and incompetent SNP to ransom.
Nicola Sturgeon has become so desperate to achieve independence she is willing to sink to any level. This is evidenced by the way the SNP have gerrymandered every election to widen the scope of those entitled to vote.
Taking Mr Ovenstone’s point about teenagers, I contend they are not sufficiently mature or worldly-wise to understand polices and their economic impacts. The law still considers them children.
In any democracy only those who pay tax and have a vested interest in how their taxes are spent should be allowed to vote.
Alastair Willett, Aberdeen.