Monthly Archives: February 2009

Homecoming Scotland 2009 gets a return of an unexpected kind – the stolen Glenfinnan Stone

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GlenfinnanThe historic Glenfinnan Stone is a foot across and has a hole cut into it allegedly to support the standard of Bonnie Prince Charlie when he raised it at Glenfinnan on Monday 19 August 1745, launching the second Jacobite rebellion.

In 1989 the stone vanished from where it had always lain, on a mound near the monument at Glenfinnan at the head of Loch Shiel.

The stone and its disappearance was mentioned to presenter Ben Fogle in a episode of the BBC’s Countryfile programe by Iain Thornber, a local historian from Lochaline in Morvern, across from Argyll’s Isle of Mull and in the same land mass as Glenfinnan.

Two weeks after the transmission of the programme the BBC received a letter which they passed on to Iain Thorber. It was from a woman who had seen the show while on holiday in Skye but was herself from Hartlepool. She had the stone in her rockery there but had not known what it was or where it had come from.

It has emerged that the stone was taken from Glenfinnan and domesticated in a rockery somewhere in Scotland, from where it was passed on to the Hartlepool lady for her own rockery. After making contact with Iain Thornber when she found out about the stone on Countryfile, she has voluntarily returned it.

The West Highland  Museum in Fort William, custodian of several Jacobite relics, will house the Glenfinnan Stone until, according to Iain Thornber, arrangements for its secure display in its own place can be made with the Roman Catholic Church which owns the Glenfinnan site.

The photograph of Genfinnan above is by Flaxton and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.

Extent of real HBOS debt beginning to emerge – For Argyll covered this months ago

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The UK financial world reeled under shock waves yesterday (13th February)  as accountants pronounced that the situation demonstrated by the HBOS  books was considerably more serious than they had previously thought. HBOS revised its loss forecast for the year upwards from around £8billion to almost £11billion. Lloyds TSB shares took a 32.5% dive after the news.

For Argyll has twice warned about HBOS’s significant exposure to Alternative A mortgages (Alt As) in the USA – mortgages which have proved more toxic than the better known Sub-Prime variety.

It is unlikely that today’s announcement is the end of this story. The eventual outcome is increasignly likely to mean the new Lloyds Banking Group joining Northern Rock as a whoilly nationalised bank. Chancellor Alistair Darling has refused to rule out this option.

Oban and Loch Lomond Seaplanes name-checked on CNN and the Seattle Times

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Argyll is definitely getting out there. One of the major travel writers in the USA, Rick Stevens has just had an article syndicated on:

  • CNN Travel – Quirky museums, meat pies and the Cliffs of Moher
  • Seattle Times – What’s new in London and beyond  for 2009

It’s the same copy in each case, under a different title and you have to read down towards the end to find the paragraph – but it’s there and those are good audiences to reach. It’s a start and with Argyll on the move, things will get a lot better.

On that note, ForArgyll.com is knocking the visitscotand site for the area – visitscottishheartlands.com – right out of the park in terms of promoting Argyll.

Our reach is eight times better. Our traffic ranking is seven times better this week and four times better on the last three month’s average. And our page views per user are between 3 and 7 times better. All good news for Argyll.

Open Day at Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory

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The Scottish Association of Marine Science (SAMS) at Dunbeg just north of Oban, is holding its annual Open Day on Saturday 7th March from 11.00am to 5.oopm.

Admission is free and the day offers a wide range of experiences from meeting people, talking and listening, looking, exploring, learning, doing competitions and winning prizes.

See for yourself the hangar where SAMS keeps equipment for exploring the ocean. Look at marine creatures close-up. See how the European Centre for Marine Biotechnology companies discover and develop new technologies and medicines from the marine environment.

Supported by a Scottish Government public science engagement grant called ‘Sharing Science’, the event also brings researchers from the University of Dundee and the University of Edinburgh to give you every opportunity to find out about exciting areas of Scottish research conducted outside Argyll.

SAMS is one of the biggest jewels in the crown of Argyll. It is involved in cutting edge research in matters at the heart of developments in marine energy and biomass. Everything it does links directly to Argyll’s greatest strength – its wealth of natural resources. This is our future in economic develeopment and SAMS is ann engine i taking us there.

Saturday 7th March is a chance to get to see this at up close and personal and to get to things you’ll want to know more about afterwards.

For further information contact Helen on 01631 559430

Argyll & Bute Council sees third consecutive unanimous acceptance of its budget amid sense of positive collective responsibility

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Yes, Argyll and Bute Council’s unanimously approved budget has frozen Council Tax for the second year running. But we knew it would. Not to do so would have been financial madness, throwing away the grant support from the Scottish Government for agreement to freeze the tax and requiring a rise in Council Tax of around 7%-8%. These are not the days for such a rise.

The real achievement of the Council is not the freezing of the Council Tax but the attitudes and processes whcih have made it possible for all shades of political opinion to set aside their narrow interests and work together constructively in the interests of Argyll.

The very aura of the Council Chamber during the budget meeting was one of mutual support and collective responsibility. It was serious. It was listening. It was alive to what it is on the way to becoming. If only Holyrood was half as mature, Scotland would not have had to endure the blinkered and old fashioned party politicking that saw the Scottish Government’s budget recently downed on its first outing.

Councillor Ellen Morton, Leader of the Opposition followed Council Leader Dick Walsh’s opening presentation and moving of the motion to approve the budget. Confidently on top of her brief, she dealt only with the issues of general concern to the Council in the framing of the budget and engaged in absolutely no party points scoring. How long is it since anywhere in the UK has seen this sort of grown up, engaged behaviour- which was reflected in the words and attitudes of every Councillor who spoke?

Councillor Morton and other Councillors paid particular tribute to the Council Leader, Dick Walsh, in the openness with which he had conducted the cross-party discussions that had led to this highly constructive outcome. When one such tribute was paid, Councillors on all sides of the chamber banged their desks in approval.

So what did they do with the budget? The budget allocation of £257 million for 2009-2010 was a tight one charged to dealing with difficult circumstances.

Councillors agreed that their unanimous priority was the protection of the most vulnerable citizens in Argyll and this was evident in the range of strategies adopted, one of which was the allocation of £2.66mllion to affordable housing.

Councillors have agreed to draw upon an additional £1.7million of Council reserves to balance the budget, enabling them to reject proposed savings on matters of significant community importance. This means that, among other decisions:

  • an additional £150,000 per year is allocated to help meet growth in demand for adult care services
  • the much admired small respite care home in Lochgilphead, Fyneview, is reprieved, pending a review
  • the part-time local libraries at Cardross, Rosneath, Garelochhead, Cove and Tarbert are similarly reprieved pending review
  • mini buses uwill continue to be provided for non-statutory pupil transportation in Tiree, Islay and Tobermory
  • the residential activity weeekend at Cowal Primary School will continue to receive funding
  • Community Learning and Youth Work will not see a reduction in the hours od sessional staff
  • the 50% reduction to the music instructors resource budget has been restored
  • businesses will benefit by no increse being made to the charges for commercial waste and commercial recycling
  • there will be continued support for a number of leisure facilities throughout Argyll and Bute, including the MacTaggart Centre, Atlantis Leisure, Mid Argyll Community Enterprise, Camanachd Association, Scottish Rugby Union and Argyll Active
  • there will be continued provision of community and housing support on Argyll’s Atlantic Islandsof Coll, Tiree, Jura and North Mull
  • external organisations will not, at this time, be charged for Streetscene services for a number of major events which bring considerable benefits to the area. These include the Cowal Gathering, Tarbert’s Scottish Series yacht racing, Connect (cancelled for 2009 but which may run smaller events), Oban Hogmanay party, Crinan Classic Boat Festival, Rothesay Games and other events in Tobermory and Helensburgh
  • public loos at Ulva Ferry, Kilmun, Glendaruel and Tayvallich will be kept open

The amount of £1.7million taken from accumulated reserves to enable the additional allocations described above leaves the Council with its stable internal contingency of 1.5% of its budget, or £3,873,000. This will remain as the contingency to support next year’s budget.

The word perhaps most used in the meeting – by the Leader, Councillor Walsh, by Depute Leader, Councillor Robert MacIntyre who seconded the motion to approve the budget, by Councillor Morton and by almost every Councillor who spoke, was – ‘challenging’. This was applied to the nature of the current and coming times. It means that there will continue to be hard choices and hard decisions to be made. No one will be surprised about that.

The last word here has to be a repetition of the first word – that Argyll is seeing the evolution of a confident, informed, collaborative and responsible council refusing to allow itself to be derailed by outdated party political posturing.

Argyll’s renewable energy potential will literally go nowhere without inclusion in planned National Grid upgrade

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Dick WalshDick Walsh, Leader of Argyll and Bute Council, has written to First Minister Alex Salmond as a matter of urgency. Argyll has been excluded from the planned upgrade to the National Grid.

The National Planning Framework for Scotland (NPF2) is currently before the Scottish Parliament and is due to be debated on 5th March 2009. It sets out details of future plans for electricity grid reinforcements, including sub-sea cables. Councillor Walsh points out that, in spite of previous representations from Argyll and Bute Council, the crucial Hunterston to Carradale cable has not been included in the plan.

In contrast, the cables for Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles are planned.

Councillor Walsh is saying: ‘The inclusion of this sub-sea cable in the National Planning Framework is critical to Argyll and Bute’s future as a centre for renewable energy production.

‘The electricity grid within Argyll and Bute is currently “saturated” – with the result that any new energy projects, even very small ones, are being refused connections any earlier than 2018. We need to increase capacity so that we can play to our strengths and introduce new wind, marine and tidal developments.

‘I cannot over-emphasise the importance of the Hunterston to Carradale sub-sea cable if we are to ensure that our extensive renewable resources can be harnessed for the long term benefit of our economy, our communities and our businesses’.

The situation highlighted by Councillor Walsh is a very serious one for Argyll. This is a place that urgently needs to establish a long-term earning capacity to sustain its economy. It is the second largest local authority area in Scotland and has a small populatiuon which is the third most dispersed in Scotland.

This means that the infrastructural and service costs Argyll annually faces are significantly higher than is the case in most other Scottish local authorities while it lacks the population base to pay for them in taxes.

In every sense, renewable energy generation is a major and enduring answer to Argyll’s economic needs. it has first class and accessible resources over the spectrum of tide, wave, wind and biomass.

It may have the means to generate this type of power and to keep generating it, but without a grid capable of carrying the power away from its sources, no serious production project can be launched here. Argyll is shackled from the start.

Argyll is Scotland’s Cinderella – beautiful but poor and orphaned. It’s close to the Central Belt but not of the Central Belt in culture or in nature. It’s technically part of the Highlands and Islands but, as that region’s most southerly territory, is not owned by the Highlands at the necessary visceral level. Argyll is not one of ‘the home counties’ for, say, Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

The Highlands and Islands see Argyll as close to the Central Belt and therefore brushed with relative gold dust and not in need. This is very far from the case.

Argyll is hugely rich in natural resources and in the beauty of its landscape. It is economically poor and lacks the employment possibilities to attract economically active incomers and to offer opportunities with real career development to its young people. It’s two real strengths for economic development are renewable energy and activity tourism.

Argyll and Bute Council has made serious strides forward in its governance of the area but however strongly it walks and however focused it is on its targets,  it needs arrows in its quiver.

Argyll’s constituency MSP is the Enterprise, Energy and Tourism Minister, Jim Mather. He is very well placed to understand the economic development needs of Argyll and to know its place in the Government’s priorities in renewable energy development. For Argyll is drawing this matter to his attention and asking him to send us his perspectives on the situation for publication.

The photograph of Argyll and Biute Council Leader, Dick Walsh, has been cropped from a group shot issued to For Argyll by the Council’s Communication Team, taken at the recent launch in Argyll of the Registrar General’s Book of Scottish Connections.

Heritage Lottery Fund awards Cairndow’s Here We Are Centre £49,900

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The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has awarded £49,900 to the development trust organisation, Here We Are, at the head of Loch Fyne, to investigate the social history of formerly tied houses at Cairndow.

Congratulating the organisation on its success, Argyll’s MSP, Jim Mather says: ‘This is a most welcome award by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the team at Here We Are are to be congratulated in bringing £49,900 into Argyll and Bute, especially at this time of time of financial constraint.

‘As well as stimulating interest locally in the history of the houses – which were at one time owned by the Ardkinglas Estate – and the people who lived in them, this will be an attraction to visitors to the area, especially if they have family connections. It  will also generally enhance the tourist experience.

‘I look forward to the Our Houses-Their Stories project fulfilling the ambition not only to  create a complete record of the buildings, their inhabitants through photographs, oral and written records, plans, maps and family trees, but also, offer the opportunity to learn new skills such as the conserving of paper and photographic records and how to record oral history, and in doing so bringing together all sections of the community’.

Commonsense the winner as EU rethinks inclusion of sea angling catches in quotas

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One of the maddest examples of the EU’s immersion in a bureaucracy too often detached from realities on the ground – or on the water in this case – has been the plan to include sea angling catches in the quotas system.

This would have brought recreational sea angling within the controversial Common Fisheries Policy, seeing every fish caught included in annual quotas for species like cod, ling and pollock, even if they were returned to the sea.

Now Joe Borg, EU Fisheries Commissioner, has ruled out the planned controls on recreational sea anglers and will alter the wording of the regulations to confirm this. He has recognised that the rules were intended for those who catch for profit and not recreational anglers who take very little and only for their own use.

The sport is a major contributor to Scotland’s economy and, as For Argyll has reported before, of even greater value than golf. It brings in around £150million per annum but had been threatened with virtual extinction by this planned move from Brussels.

Argyll encouraged by 38 expressions of interest in marine energy development in Pentland Firth

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Sound of IslayAn indication for Argyll of the depth of interest in marine energy generation is the announcement by the Crown Estate that it has received 38 expressions of interest in leasing parcels of the sea bed in Scotland’s Pentland Firth for marine energy projects. These expressions of interest have come from single companies and from consortia.

The Crown Estate  owns the seabed between the mainland and Orkney – which one day will be an issue and, unsurprisingly is delighted with the lively response to its opening the Pentland Firth area for such bids. First Minister Alex Salmond also found the degree of interest encouraging.

The Scottish Government is preparing a new planning document – the Marine Spatial Plan – which will describe the commercial opportunities and the challenges to be faced in harnessing marine energy.

Argyll has very real potential resources in marine and tidal renewable energy development. The main one of these is the Sound of Islay with its 9 knot bore and, as we have reported, the Islay Energy Trust are already engaged with Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University in a major project which will see trials of a marine turbine installation take place in a selected area of the Sound.

The level of interest in the Pentland Firth is proof of the incentive for Argyll’s to start preparing for such developments in its own powerful seaways and waterways.

The photograph above is by the copyright holder, Peter Ewards and shows the shoreline on the Sound of Islay looking north across to Jura and the Paps of Jura. It is reprodiced here under the Creative Commons licence.

Scots service families welcome progress in move to hold inquests in Scotland into deaths of servicemen abroad

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Until now, inquests into the deaths abroad of Scots servicemen have had to be held on England. This has led to two problems – delays in the inquests in England with the volume to be heard and the distance, time and expense inflicted on Scots families.

The Scottish Government and Scottish Westminster MPs have been keen to have such inquests heard in Scotnad and the bodies of Scots servicemen killed to be repatriated here. The UK Government and the Scottish Office have been in discussions with the Scottish Governemnt about the matter. Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill  has talked to UK Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth and progress is now being made.

Westminster is proposing a system which would stop short of a complete transfer of such powers to Holyrood. The system under discussions is that the UK Secretary of State for Defence would, if the body of a Scottish serviceman or woman was still outside the UK and if relatives consented, ask the Scottish Lord Advocate to hold an FAI into the death. The body could then be repatriated to Scotland, where the FAI would be carried out under the amended Scots law.

Amendments will need to be made to both English and Scots laws to enable the development. Under Scots law, for example, Fatal Accident Inquiries (FAIs) cannot be held here into deaths taking place  abroad. It is understood that the UK Government wishes to see these changes made within the current Parliamentary session. Service families will welcome both the move and its prompt resolution.