I WRITE regarding Carolyn Leckie’s article (Time is fast coming to name date for indyref2, The National, December 11). While I agree that the date of the next referendum should be announced in the new year, I think that date should be September 17 2018. Waiting until 2019 is a bit like knowing in advance you’re going to be in a car crash but waiting until after the crash to see if you survive or not.

Voting for independence before Brexit allows Scotland to open negotiations with the EU or the European Free Trade Association from within the EU and would allow flexibility of approach as we would already meet many of the required criteria.

Other than that, a thought-provoking article and one that should start a debate about the ideal time to have indyref2.
A MacAlister
Falkirk

WHILE much media attention recently has focused on Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, this week also marks the centenary of the allied forces under General Allenby marching into that city after overthrowing the Ottoman Empire. By doing this Allenby became the first Christian to control the Holy City in 730 years.

It should be noted that thousands of Scottish soldiers played a key role in the push across the territory then known as Palestine towards Jerusalem, which is held holy by three major religions. Britain’s fight against the Turks at the beginning of the final year of World War One is not a well-known story. It’s called the “forgotten war” and doesn’t feature in our typical view of soldiers on the Western Front stuck in sodden trenches.

The Ottomans had controlled the region for more than 400 years in a brutal and repressive regime, and the military success in overthrowing them came at a price. Overall, the British Empire troop death toll was about 28,000. The 52nd Lowland Division — whose soldiers were mainly drawn from central and southern Scotland — was among the Scots units who played a key role in the battles that led to Jerusalem. Of the 11,000-strong division, 920 were killed, 304 reported missing and 4306 were wounded. It should be noted that this was a Territorial Army unit — the men in it were not career soldiers.

St Andrew’s Church and Hospice, was built as a congregation of the Church of Scotland to remember the Scottish soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. One of the main campaigners for the memorial church was Ninian Hill, an Edinburgh shipowner.

The Scottish soldiers helped General Allenby in his aim of securing Jerusalem, but his ultimate hope of peaceful co-existence is a distant dream — unrealistic, and for some perhaps even unwanted.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh

CATRIONA Grigg and Ian Madeley (The Long Letter, December 11) seem to want us to believe that the wanton destruction of an important natural site in favour of an unrealistic and unproven economic idea is a “local” issue. It is not. It concerns everyone. The damage this golf course would do to the natural environment is permanent and a loss to us all forever. If every community in Scotland, small or otherwise, could themselves decide to bulldoze protected natural sites in favour of some ill-founded notion of riches then we may as well not bother having these protected sites at all. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for investment in sustainable, environmentally sound, high value industry in or near Embo But this blinkered approach of “golf course or nothing” will do a lot of damage that concerns us all and will only really benefit the investors, and they don’t need our help.
Maarten de Vries
Munlochy

I FEAR your correspondent Catriona Grigg is putting a rather optimistic spin on the terms of Scottish Natural Heritage’s consultation response to the Coul Links proposal.

While it does not rule out a golf course development somewhere in the vicinity, the extent of relocation necessary to address SNH’s objection — “using a much higher proportion of agricultural land” — doesn’t seem capable of being treated as an amendment to the current application. In other words a completely fresh application with a materially different site boundary would be required; the door is certainly shut on the development as defined by the current application site boundary.

The offer to “work with the applicant to reduce impacts” relates to particular habitats and species which are identified in the response as other important considerations, but doesn’t alter the fact that in SNH’s view the impact on the dunes themselves would be too great.

Your readers should also be aware that SNH’s concerns should already have been apparent to the developers at the stage of pre-application consultation, which all developments of this size have to undergo before a planning application is lodged. The Trump comparisons are only unfair in that few if any developers would dream of behaving as nastily and boorishly as POTUS did at Menie. What does seem all too frequently to be the case though is that developers feel they should have no need to change their plans radically to address known “red-line” concerns, because the planning system should never be permitted to stand in the way of whatever they propose. That attitude undermines the whole point of the system and should be a matter of concern to people wherever in Scotland they live and work.
Andrew McCracken
Address supplied