Letters / Seizing opportunities
It’s good to slug it out with Billy Fox. The issues are of substance, even if there are occasional economies with the truth.
Of course Jean Urquhart, as a Highlands & Islands MSP, knows that plans for decommissioning facilities at Lerwick are well advanced. Lerwick must provide facilities that attract a decommissioning operator of a scale and competence to ensure that we are THE key centre for the development of this work. Major investment at Dales Voe is involved, and support from Government will greatly help. The initiative, including responsibility for the business plan, lies here in Shetland.
If securing help for this project is “opportunism”, then I suppose the SNP government should plead guilty. It is the business of good government to help local initiatives to bear fruit by seizing opportunities. The Scottish government is committed to supporting both the renewables and the oil industries, and that is the context in which their approval of Viking Energy’s initiative and readiness to support Lerwick Port Authority’s initiative should be seen.
On the matter of the failure to supply a relief vessel during Northlink’s dry-docking for want of £25,000, I offer no defence on the part of the SNP. But this was not some claw-back conspiracy by Edinburgh against Lerwick, just a bad decision, doubtless originating with civil servants. There is a major mess to clear up concerning the Aberdeen link. The boats are not fit for purpose, especially the freighters. Pricing policy is not transparent. Subsidy is close to £2000 a year for each Shetlander, and we are not getting value for money. The operating contractor’s obligations are not sufficiently clear.
What I am glad to tell Billy and others is that we in the Shetland (and Orkney) SNP have secured a promise from the Transport Minister to attend a “ferry summit” after the election, to put all the issues on the table and make all the progress we can towards a saner ferry contract. Meanwhile, a strong Shetland SNP can be effective in preventing decisions such as January’s £25,000 demand ever happening again.
The period of the next Council will be crucial for asserting the amount of autonomy we want, from both London and Edinburgh. I sense a substantial potential agreement across the Shetland political spectrum that we want to manage more things for ourselves. Why should planning decisions go outside Shetland at all? Can we not manage our local fisheries regime ourselves? And the Crown Estate assets? Can we not control and spend the Charitable Trust funds as we want, as was intended when the fund was established? And so on. We need to hammer out what autonomy and safeguards we want, and then go get it. London does stand in the way. The SNP Government in Edinburgh does not. In the accumulating referendum debate, there is nothing but opportunity for Shetland to get what it wants in relation to the new Scotland.
Danus Skene,
SNP candidate in Lerwick North and Bressay
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