Your letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser: November 30, 2017

To have your say on any local issue, email editorial@helensburghadvertiser.co.uk with 'Letter' in the subject line and we'll publish the best in our December 7 print edition. Please remember to include your name, address and a daytime contact phone number in case we need to check any details at short notice.

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Winter comes every year and with it the risks of ice and snow. Slipping and falling on ice is no laughing matter when it results in serious injury.

Fortunately, measures such as spreading grit and salt on road surfaces can substantially reduce these risks.

Strangely, the car park which is located above the Helensburgh Co-op, and is used by many train travellers, is never gritted. And I mean never.

Ice, poor lighting and an uneven surface combine to make this an extremely hazardous area. I wonder if any of our councillors have ever used this car park on an icy winter evening.

Whoever is responsible for this facility (Argyll and Bute Council? Railtrack? ScotRail? The Co-op?) should be required to take action.

An important feature of Helensburgh’s economy is its role as a commuter town and it is served by an excellent train service, however this parking facility for rail passengers is in a pitiful state and does no credit to our town.

Eleanor Hunter, Helensburgh

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The budget for Argyll and Bute is presently under discussion. I read through some of the suggestions for savings in the year 2018/19 on their consultation web page. Clearly there is something of a disconnect between the revenue budget and the capital budget.

We are in the midst of the regeneration of Hermitage Park; we have recently completed both the construction of new council offices and the CHORD project; on the horizon is the regeneration of the pierhead. As I write contractors are refurbishing the toilets at the pier.

One of the suggestion in the proposed budget is to close many of the public toilets throughout Argyll and Bute. Will the updated Hermitage Park have toilets and will they be open, unlike the ones they have recently demolished; will the ones at the pier escape the cull?

Maybe we’ll be fortunate with the leader and depute leader of Argyll and Bute Council being based here in Helensburgh.

Part of the suggestion to replace those closed is that local business will be encouraged to open their toilets to the public. This is interesting as the ones that used to serve Kidston Park have been handed over to a commercial business; they encourage children to bring their parents with a playpark.

Now they have imposed a 30p charge to use the toilets and, on occasion, children can now be seen dancing while their parents scrabble for change.

It used to be, long ago, that each town had a town clerk who ran the show. Now we have armies of administrators in palatial offices and not so many workers left for them to administer.

Dougie Blackwood, Helensburgh

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Recent Scottish Conservative research has shown that patients are having to wait an absurd amount of time for cancer treatment across Scotland.

For instance the research shows that one patient in the Western Isles waited 275 days. This is despite the Scottish Government’s target to begin cancer treatment for every patient within 62 days of urgent referral.

Sadly it seems that almost every day there is bad news about how the NHS is being run by the Scottish Government and this is yet another damning statistic that exposes the SNP’s shambolic mishandling of the NHS.

With so much of both the management of the NHS and it's treatment of patients being centralized to near breaking point the problems that urban Scots face are amplified for residents of Argyll and Bute as well as the rest of rural Scotland.

I would implore the Scottish Government to address this unacceptable and unsustainable situation urgently.

With the demographics of Scotland continuing to show large growth in the number of elderly residents every year this matter will not be going away anytime soon.

As I have said so many times before we in Scotland deserve better than the SNP's poor governance.

Cllr Alastair Redman (Conservative, Kintyre and the Islands)

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Cash strapped Argyll and Bute Council is about to consider budget options for next year. For the last six years Argyll Ferries has been charged at least £250,000 less every year than the operating cost for using Dunoon Harbour.

This amounts to a "hidden" subsidy to the 'bath tub boats' of more than £1.5 million of our money to support a useless ferry service that was declared "not fit for purpose" by the Scottish transport minister as long ago as 2012!

We were heartened to read the interim harbours report produced by Argyll and Bute Council last year which stated that all main harbours had to make money.

However, recent clarification from the responsible officer has revealed that the term "all" is a collective term meaning that all the harbours together must make money but that each individual harbour can still be allowed to lose money.

The current tariff not only provides a subsidy for the passenger only service; it also charges more than a million extra per year for larger (vehicle carrying?) vessels than it charges the bath tubs!

So our council is using our money to support a useless ferry service when it professes that it wants to see economic regeneration of the town.

Regeneration can only occur if we have good transport links. But a reliable ferry service (bigger boats) is being priced out of the market by our council.

In the local elections this year, all successful Dunoon and Cowal candidates confirmed that councillors would run the council and that officers would do as they were told.

So just what are our councillors going to do about setting the tariff for Dunoon Harbour from 2018 - hide behind councillors from Oban and Helensburgh?

Susanna Rice (Convener, Dunoon-Gourock Ferry Action Group)

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I was astounded to discover that, despite many of the vendors adopting German and Scottish themes, much of the tawdry merchandise on display in Edinburgh's Christmas Markets actually comes from China.

Why not go the whole hog and have a real Chinese Market next year? I'm sure that Edinburgh councillors and council officials would be prepared to undertake fact finding missions to the Far East if they thought that this would enable the City to recruit appropriate traders.

And no doubt Edinburgh Zoo would be prepared to lend out their panda if it would add verisimilitude to such an event.

John Eoin Douglas, via email

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As the festive season approaches, we’re asking readers to help us raise money for some very special children during their Christmas celebrations this year.

The Children's Trust is asking you to put on your seasonal smile, don your festive socks and frocks and show some Christmas spirit by getting involved in Festive Friday, a national dress-up day, on December 8.

Haven’t got anything festive? The downloadable Festive Friday toolkit complete with DIY selfie props is the perfect accompaniment for your Christmas party and those festive party photos, in return for a suggested donation of £2.

Each pack includes classic Christmas pudding glasses, Santa’s hat and beard, a trendy holly bowtie and some naughty and nice signs to stir things up a bit! Money raised will help to support children with brain injury from across the UK.

Sign up today at www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk/festivefriday. Thank you.

Hannah Vince (Fundraiser at The Children’s Trust)