92
edits
EMD/AA: Difference between revisions
m
no edit summary
mNo edit summary |
mNo edit summary |
||
| (4 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
Line 1:
===
::''"Long is the way, and hard, that out of hell leads up to light"'' -John Milton
The 'Annotated Angus' is a documentary record of a presentation given by [https://www.youtube.com/embed/rqSh0VrvesU Angus MacDonald] (hereafter: AMD) to [[Main Page|FITCC]] in late 2021. [[EMD]] hoped to finish it by New Year's Eve 2021 but, due to COVID and a bereavement, didn't.▼
▲The 'Annotated Angus' is a
===== The 'Annotated Angus' =====
AMD introduced himself briefly as having had a "very good career" [''esp. abroad in Hong Kong'' -EMD] but with local roots dating back something like 1000 years(!), and therefore having both the means and the motivation to help Fort William "flourish." Strictly speaking, AMD's family seat is closer to Spean Bridge than Ft Wm, but he was very clear that our town needs to thrive if the area is to "work," for which reason AMD has already opened two businesses in the High Street: a bookshop and a two-screen cinema.
Line 53 ⟶ 55:
AMD thought we could expect very little political support for our ambition for Fort William to become a British Town of the Year. He emphasised the poor quality of our transport infrastructure and inadequacy of public spending on capital projects, describing the local ferry services provided by Caledonian MacBrayne as "a disgrace - as is the A82."
It is hardly in question that our area both needs and deserves more money from central government. Our locality was promised a new hospital two decades ago, as well as improvements to the A82, neither of which have been forthcoming (although EMD has argued strongly for several years that retaining a roadbridge crossing to Caol Spit on the local plan quite forestalls any possible progress on an A82 bypass extension through Blackparks, among other ill-consequences, and serves no purpose whatsoever because "''the mooted bridge will never be built, period''"). Somewhat more recently, the promised STEM centre has yet to materialise despite a number of similar assurances given over the last few years.
::''"If we can't claim and obtain our rightful share of funds from general taxation when our MP leads Scotland's governing party at Westminster and our MSP is the second most powerful woman in Scotland, when the hell can we?"'' -EMD
AMD contrasted his BToY initiative with the "grandiose" ambitions of Highland Council's longstanding [[FW2040|FW2040 project]]. This was to some extent based on a misunderstanding of the origin of FW2040, which was and is an (unfunded) attempt, mandated by ScotGov, to impose a measure of coherence on local development. AMD was certainly right, though, to draw attention to the fact that FW2040 has very little to do with the development of Fort William town centre, where the most significant changes wrought by HRC in recent years have probably been the abandonment of several office buildings following the opening of the Charles Kennedy building south of the West End roundabout.
::''HRC's FW2040 project lead is the highly competent Scott Delgano, ably assisted by HIE's equally capable Alastair Nicholson; neither gentleman can be blamed for FW2040's deficiencies which largely flow from the statutory and regulatory framework underlying the project. Entirely separate, too, is the problem of underfulfillment: if funds are rarely if ever channelled here other than via Inverness, the prevailing glacial pace of implementation is hardly likely to improve.'' -EMD
Line 64 ⟶ 66:
::''I know of no way to organise a postal-vote primary for less than £500 because that is the minimum spend to gain access to Royal Mail's 'Mailsort Three' (ie third-class mass-mailing) services.'' -EMD
=====Afterword: The North Face of Ben Nevis=====
::''It's long been an adage of mine that the goddamned Nessiemafiosi would steal Ben Nevis for their town if they could (I refuse to dignify a tin-pot conurbation of barely fifty thousand people with the word 'city', btw). Fortunately, the Ben's celebrated North Face is over two kilometres long and won't be going anywhere this side of a thermonuclear explosion. <br />I said earlier that we could and should make more of this excellent asset. An admittedly minor but potentially useful side-effect of popularising [[3P3D|Three Peaks Three Days]] would be to increase demand for accommodation, albeit mainly on bank holiday Saturday nights in the first instance. However, pushing 3P3D would generate interest in the north face across the UK which could only stimulate demand year-round.'' -EMD
===== Appendix: Excerpt from (DRAFT) MINUTE OF FITCC MEETING on TUESDAY 16th NOVEMBER 2021 at 7:00pm via MS-Teams =====
| |||