REGARDING your headline “£25 million bid to find fix for Rest and be thankful” (Aug 30). May I refer you to the vast amount of knowledge and experience out there, well studied in the “Synthesis report on the use and design of snow sheds to protect transportation corridors against avalanches”.
Have our engineers not yet proven for themselves that one simply cannot stop mountains shedding themselves into the valleys below?
The solution clearly lies in “snow sheds” or “avalanche galleries”, widely used in the Pyrenees, the Alps and in Canada and North America.
READ MORE: Shetland reacts to £10,000 energy bill warning: 'People are really worried and scared'
These constructions allow the fall of debris, be it snow or rock, to be guided over the road to be protected, and down into the valley below, rather than trying to stop them falling at all.
The natural order of things is from up to down. Let us stop this wastefulness of money and time in trying to reverse that order, and instead use proven, tried and trusted methods.
We Scots are recognised as the best engineers in the world. Well, in this case, we will be able to Rest and be Thankful if we actually employ these long-established and well trusted methods.
Christopher Bruce
Taynuilt
THE people of southern Fife may have a royal visitor in the coming days or weeks – the schedules is not yet certain. The Prince of Wales may drop in for an unscheduled visit. There was a planned visit in early 2023, but due to circumstances unfolding it may be brought forward.
The Royal Dockyard Rosyth, also known affectionately as “The Concrete Cruiser”, is to be the venue for the visit.
It’s not, as you may think, HRH Prince of Wales, but the ship named in his honour and commissioned by himself and the Countess of Cornwall in 2019. It is the Nato flagship HMS Prince of Wales, the aircraft carrier without aircraft.
READ MORE: Pictures show HMS Prince of Wales limping back to shore after breaking down
PoW (Prince of Wales) was planning to sail across the pond to take part in an exercise on the eastern US seaboard, where its F35 Lightnings and Drone technology would/could be integrated into its systems. This has been delayed due to an early detection of propeller shaft malfunction which may require the use of the Rosyth Dry Dock. It was always planned that PoW would make use of this facility, but it appears it may be sooner rather than the 2023.
This weapons delivery platform hasn’t had it’s problems to seek, has it? The £3bn carrier’s flight deck cannot accommodate the current Euro Fighter, the Typhoon. The PoW lacks the catapult and arrested recovery needed for the Typhoon, by design.
By all accounts It seems that HMS Prince of Wales may need more work on the starboard propeller shaft and for the F35 trials to be abandoned in the short term. Who foots the bill for this, I wonder? MoD? Or the manufacturer?
Is this another Ajax in the making?
Alistair Ballantyne
Birkhill, Angus
I LIVE a few miles from Hunterston nuclear power stations. So Hunterston B station is to be decommissioned. Does anyone know the estimated cost? I reckon it will not be less than £20 billion.
I quote from EDF’s leaflet: “The majority of the buildings will be demolished in 12 years. Following a long period of inactivity, around 70 years when the reactor buildings are maintained in a safe quiescent state, the remaining site will be decommissioned While future uses of the site will not be achieved for many decades, our decommissioning plan is a stepped approach to dismantling and decontamination towards an end state, allowing for safe radioactive decay, prior to final site clearance.”
So 46 years of so-called cheap energy and decades of a radioactive site , not safe for any future use. Why would anyone choose that as opposed to renewable source of energy!
Those in favour of nuclear often say the wind doesn’t blow all the time, but living close to the sea I can vouch for the tide coming in and out without fail even day. I suggest to any future PM, have all the nuclear power you want but make sure it is in your own back yard.
Incidentally, the nuclear weapons are just a stone’s throw away as the crow flies. I suggest you store them some where far away from the Clyde.
M Forrest
West Kilbride
TRUSS’S pledges on nuclear weapons in the Sunday National must sadden her mother. Priscilla Truss bravely stood out with hundred of others against the cold war consensus of that time in calling for unilateral nuclear disarmament. That movement in the 1980s built the foundations for what had grown to be the settled will of the majority of Scots – to rid our land of nuclear weapons.
READ MORE: Liz Truss commits to keeping Trident nuclear weapons on the Clyde
Liz Truss will have heard from her mother the cogent case against them – that they do not deter (eg Russia from attacking Ukraine), that they make us less secure by making us a target, and less sovereign as the US controls the missiles which would deliver the UK nuclear warheads. But Liz Truss will say anything to please her tiny, totally unrepresentative electorate to get power. In office she will duck and weave with no clear ideas of how to tackle our multiple crises.
Duncan Macintosh
Renfrewshire CND
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here