With due respect to the national superiority implicit in these articles, the assertion is as nonsensical as the suggestion that Sepa and local planners would permit the "bulldozing" of the famous dunes.
The projects in Aberdeenshire whose opponents attract acres of media coverage – Trump and the Aberdeen Western Periphery Route – have strong support from locals. In Trump's case, as Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce chief executive Robert Collier explains, improving the golf tourism offering helps secure Aberdeen's post-oil future. Even in low-unemployment Aberdeen, Collier says, every Trump job has eight to 10 applicants.
Disdain for Donald and his vulgar ability to attract paying customers to Scotland is fine, but media coverage needs to reflect more than a vocal minority.
One of Agenda's favourite subjects, Transport Scotland's management of the Scottish Government's £500 million grant to the tram project, hit the headlines last week when it was revealed, despite strenuous obfuscation, that TS actively demanded NOT to be involved with the management of the project, and even asked not to receive copies of paperwork.
But hang on- in the same breath they were also admitting that they WERE closely involved in the important part – ensuring that progress on the ground matched payments from the Scottish Government. Apparent non-compliance with the terms of TS's own 24-clause "Grant Offer to CEC for Constriction of Phase 1 of the Edinburgh Tram Network" document of 2007 is key to the fiasco.
Despite mysterious redactions, this Exhibit A of a future inquiry reveals the checks, including a cast-iron "milestone" system, designed to ensure that outrageous overspends did not occur. The fact that they did occur suggests that either tram project management firm TIE and Edinburgh City Council were less than thorough in preparing their progress reports or that TS, under its tram project manager John Ramsay, rail manager Bill Reeve and former chief executive Dr Malcolm Reed CBE, may have fallen short in their duty to enforce the terms of the agreement.
