I’D like to make a couple of points regarding the two adjacent articles on pages eight and nine of Thursday’s National. First concerning the article “Belgian official tells region to prepare for independence.”
One thing that has to be considered here is cost. We have already seen two different ferries from Rosyth to Belgium cease because they were not being patronised. The reason for this was simply that it was still cheaper to send lorries, or travel by car, to the south coast of England and cross by the ferries there.
In today’s atmosphere of enforced Tory austerity, who’s going to travel from here by ferry if it’s cheaper to go via England?
READ MORE: Belgian ports told 'prepare for Scottish independence' by leading politician
Some time ago I planned to travel to the Paris region by car and I investigated the various costs. It was around £80 cheaper for a return journey to go via Dover to Calais than it was to go via Rosyth to Zeebrugge! In fact, the cheapest overland option was to travel to Southampton and take the overnight ferry to Le Havre. The cheapest option by far was to fly to Paris and hire a car at the airport. If we are going to have a ferry direct from Scotland to Belgium, then we must make sure that the prices charged are competitive in comparison to other route options.
Second, concerning the short article “City deal is ‘slowed’” – and in particular the bit concerning “boosting affordable housing availability”.
Recently the talk about the shortage of affordable housing has been centred around how it impacts on our tourist trade by making it impossible for hotels to get staff since there’s no housing available in the Highland areas. Fort William seems to be a prime example!
READ MORE: Brexit hits £315 million Inverness and Highland City Region Deal
As mentioned above, we are suffering from the effects of a prolonged period of Tory austerity so folks are trying every means possible to augment their income. A favourite seems to be buying up property and letting it out under the lucrative Airbnb market. Even allowing for the introduction of proper licensing procedures, it is unlikely that just building “affordable” housing on the open market will solve the problem. That is likely to also be bought up and used for Airbnb.
What we really need is some sort of explosion of affordable housing under the control of local authorities for rental rather than purchase. Why can’t we repeat what happened at the end of the Second World War, when the country was severely stretched for housing due to the large numbers of servicemen returning from the war?
The majority of them were men who were single when the war started, but who married their sweethearts in a rush before they were packed off overseas. This meant that when they returned home it wasn’t feasible for them all to live with parents.
Urgent housing was needed, and the result was a surge in “pre-fabs” all over Britain. Complete housing schemes were erected in a matter of a few weeks. This was supposed to be only “temporary” housing meant to last little more than 10 to 15 years. However, many people were still living in them 30 or 40 years later. Some even bought their pre-fab home and put a brick skin around it to make it permanent.
Why not do the same again? After all, you frequently find private “gated communities” consisting entirely of “chalet” homes which are little more than residential caravans and folk grab them up. That sort of housing is far more compatible and suitable as a permanent home today than the pre-fabs were. It was a quick, simple and economic solution back then and could easily be the required solution today.
Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes
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