I AM surprised that Alasdair Ferguson, writing in The National, an organ of independent thinking, has wholesale adopted the propaganda of North Coast 500 Ltd regarding its “visitor pledge” (NC500 plan for irresponsible tourism crackdown, Oct 30).

For a start, the whole company would appear to be based on a false premise – how can individuals market something that does not belong to them in the first place? The roads which comprise this “route” are public highways, indeed the only lifelines for communities. The company appears to have ingratiated itself with our elected representatives, but not, I hazard a guess, with most of the electorate.

NC500 Ltd somehow managed to devise a scheme whereby it creams money from tourists through various marketing ploys, but it does nothing in return by way of investment in infrastructure, expecting the local population to fund that through their taxes.

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As someone who belongs to the Highlands I feel extremely let down by local and national politicians for allowing this farce to continue in its exploitation of an area of outstanding beauty and fragile communities. They need to look at sustainable development; tourism is not the only way. I would respectfully suggest they should look at New Zealand and Iceland with a view to implementing their methods of tourism management, and that they look more seriously at meaningful development of rural industries.

As for NC500 Ltd, I suggest they desist from fooling a gullible public in order to line their own pockets through the prostitution of a landscape which has suffered sufficiently from exploitation in the past. We had sustainable tourism in these parts – we now experience overtourism, largely in the ungainly and damaging form of motorhomes. For the sake of the land and its communities, it needs to stop. And journalists should carefully check their sources.

Susan Black
Rhiconich, Sutherland

HIGHLAND Council has rightfully agreed to implement Councillor Helen Crawford’s important motion to help communities deal with the plethora of Big Energy planning applications, including producing a regularly updated energy development cumulative impact map; something that is desperately needed to show councillors and residents the terrifying industrial tsunami that is engulfing us.

Other local authorities would be well advised to follow Highland Council’s lead on this.

Meanwhile it suits the Scottish Government to excitedly leap into bed with the UK Government with all the decorum of a ravenous Labrador in a dog food testing facility in a blatant joint attempt to efficiently speed up the destruction of our rural environment by the same global investment companies, against the wishes of the very people they are paid to protect.

READ MORE: Road to iconic beauty spot to close next week as people told to 'avoid area'

The recent consultation announced by the UK Government and excitedly embraced by Scottish ministers is a democratic outrage.

It is intent on removing local voices and centralising planning powers to the benefit of the profit-driven multinationals.

Campaigners have been aware for some time that forces within the SNP, both here and in Westminster, are ignoring the desperate situation in which their own constituents are finding themselves, with mental distress and devalued homes, and are speaking up and lobbying for the Big Energy companies that are merrily colonising our environment for profit. The most distasteful part of this new “consultation” is to do away with the automatic public inquiry being triggered by a local authority objection to a large industrial development.

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Local authorities should be listening to the people who live in the locality and representing their views – they don’t always do so, but that is their job. To take away the opportunity for developers and their plans to be scrutinised in a public forum by crucially independent experts is a disgrace. That is our right, and to deny us that means the only path open to us is court action against the Scottish Government for rubber-stamping the demise of our way of life.

It is a crass and deliberate act to crush local democracy by those we pay to serve us.

The Holyrood elections are not so far away, and every MSP should look in the mirror and ask themselves if throwing their rural citizens under Big Energy’s gravy train was worth it as constituents prepare to punish those who chose the side of the wealthy multinationals instead of theirs.

Lyndsey Ward
Spokeswoman for Communities B4 power Companies
Beauly

ELECTED on a wave of change, the Labour Party have just presented their first budget in 14 years. Oh how they cheered as the first female Chancellor announced a penny off the pint. However, my local have just put 25p on my pensioner’s-priced Guinness. Is there no correlation between politics and reality any more, and if not who’s in la la land?

Kenny Burnett
Aberdeen