RSPB has done nothing for our community
Sir – You just couldn’t make it up.
On the one hand, the RSPB, with its insatiable appetite for burying its nose in the public purse, now scrounging money from the local authority and, on the other hand, the councillors awarding it a £10,000 grant.
This, of course, will be the same councillors who, daily, wring their hands in mock despair at having to make cuts in care for the elderly, education and, for goodness sake, don’t mention potholes, necessary road repairs, and generally across all of their responsibilities.
So, well done councillors Coghill and Fernie for voicing your objections. I hope you don’t leave it there.
As for Councillor George Farlow, apart from cloud-cuckoo land, where has he been residing of late, given his toadying comment: "The RSPB works hard to engage with people in the community."
Let me remind Mr Farlow the RSPB has been a major landowner in this area for almost two decades during which time it has been awarded large sums of money from the public purse. Despite this, the RSPB has never done anything of note for this community and, despite being awarded considerable largesse, it has never created one full-time job for a local person.
When the RSPB first came to Forsinard, its Inverness-based manager, George Campbell, boasted at a meeting in Thurso about the benefits that would accrue to the community and on this basis I asked him to address a local meeting.
For three years, Mr Campbell used every excuse to avoid having this meeting until, finally, even he was shamed into making an appearance.
Sadly, all we got from him was vacuous propaganda and a promise to meet us again when he had something important to tell us. Despite this promise made last century, we never heard from Mr Campbell again.
One would hope, even at this stage, the RSPB would do the decent thing and withdraw its application in the interest of more beneficial community projects.
But don’t hold your breath. Forming a simple sentence containing "interest of the community" and "RSPB" would tax the most scholarly in our midst.
Alistair Fraser,
Trantlebeg,
Forsinard.
