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Snowandrocks wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 00:21
I suspect he's referring to the Greens as much as the SNP.
Here in Aberdeenshire, there's a lot of anger about the Greens having so much influence on the back of so little electoral support. They didn't even bother to stand a candidate in Aberdeenshire West and came stone cold last in the regional list yet are seemingly calling the shots.
The current urban centric student union type priorities of the Scottish Government really are alienating a lot of their support in rural Scotland. While it's true Fergus Ewing is retiring, I think it's that freedom that's allowing him to stand up for his constituency.
It took me over 4 hours to drive the 100 miles from Aberdeen to Inverness a few weeks back. No accidents or anything just endless plodding along. For the return journey I took the A939 over the Lecht Pass and saved an hour and a half. A sub 25 mph average on a long distance trunk road is surely pretty unacceptable even in Patrick Harvie's book.
When I drive Inverness to Aberdeen I drive down the A9 to Slochd then take the A95 past Grantown-on-spey, then take the A941 past Dufftown, then join the A96 at Huntly.
This way is a lot less stressful and a lot quieter than taking the A96. Seems to be a bit quicker too. The A9 and A96 are sub-standard and badly need dualled, for a country the size of Scotland to be connected properly it needs done.
As others have touched on a problem will be actually getting people to do the physically demanding work in these rural areas. There is a lack of young fit workers in many rural areas because young people can't afford to live there.
Property prices have gone up a lot because of wealthy retirees moving there from urban areas and also of properties are beings be used for short-term lets and as second homes. It is unaffordable for young people to live in many rural areas. Bringing workers in from Europe doesn't fix that issue either because they would also struggle to find affordable homes.
Snowandrocks wrote: ↑Sun Oct 29, 2023 00:21
I suspect he's referring to the Greens as much as the SNP.
Here in Aberdeenshire, there's a lot of anger about the Greens having so much influence on the back of so little electoral support. They didn't even bother to stand a candidate in Aberdeenshire West and came stone cold last in the regional list yet are seemingly calling the shots.
The current urban centric student union type priorities of the Scottish Government really are alienating a lot of their support in rural Scotland. While it's true Fergus Ewing is retiring, I think it's that freedom that's allowing him to stand up for his constituency.
It took me over 4 hours to drive the 100 miles from Aberdeen to Inverness a few weeks back. No accidents or anything just endless plodding along. For the return journey I took the A939 over the Lecht Pass and saved an hour and a half. A sub 25 mph average on a long distance trunk road is surely pretty unacceptable even in Patrick Harvie's book.
When I drive Inverness to Aberdeen I drive down the A9 to Slochd then take the A95 past Grantown-on-spey, then take the A941 past Dufftown, then join the A96 at Huntly.
This way is a lot less stressful and a lot quieter than taking the A96. Seems to be a bit quicker too. The A9 and A96 are sub-standard and badly need dualled, for a country the size of Scotland to be connected properly it needs done.
As others have touched on a problem will be actually getting people to do the physically demanding work in these rural areas. There is a lack of young fit workers in many rural areas because young people can't afford to live there.
Property prices have gone up a lot because of wealthy retirees moving there from urban areas and also of properties are beings be used for short-term lets and as second homes. It is unaffordable for young people to live in many rural areas. Bringing workers in from Europe doesn't fix that issue either because they would also struggle to find affordable homes.
Very much so. The fight over AirBnBs is downstream of the real problem that there are very desirable areas in this country where we have made it largely impossible to build new housing and accommodation for visitors. People complain about AirBnB or second home uses outbidding locals in rural and picturesque areas because it functionally is a zero sum game right now, which has never led to prosperity or political stability.
The lack of development in rural areas really harms the business case for infrastructure investment. If you want the A9 dualled ASAP then make it as easy as possible for people to buy the land and build a little summer holiday hut. The traffic chaos this would cause would make the case for that full dualling, as well as rail improvements. Islands would have an easier time justifying fixed links if the local government were able to benefit from a large increase in local tax revenues from permanent and temporary residents.
Unfortunately our political myopia makes this harder too. A lot of people treat rural areas as if humans should be banned entirely. The furore over even installing a mobile phone masts is just the tip of the iceberg.
When tourism is one of the key opportunities for economic development in these areas, it's imperative to get it right. 50% of the economy of the Savoie region in France comes from tourism. To enable that, they have massive investment in infrastructure and housing. There is no fundamental reason that appropriate local developments couldn't enhance the experience in rural areas. Ski resorts and regions do just fine with traditional building styles providing vast amounts of high quality visitor accommodation. Les Arcs has a dedicated funicular all the way down to the train station at Bourg-St-Maurice, so that people from across France and indeed Europe can have a totally car-free and electric zero-carbon holiday in the Alps.
Mikehannah wrote: ↑Mon Oct 30, 2023 17:08
In the Scottish elections every seat counts
Indeed and 70% of the voters live in the central belt so guess which region is likely to most influence the Scottish Government ? As for increasing number of households that is happening all across the UK. Young adults don't tend to live with their parents any more, they want their own gaff. Aberdeen and Inverness bucked the trend for a while but the decline of the traditional energy industries such as oil, gas and coal has slowed that down and the population is aging. With the birth rate falling Aberdeen is likely to shrink.
Still disappointed to see the roundabout for the retail park will remain. Surely something could have been done at Smithton to combine the two junctions into one decent GSJ.
How would you like your grade separations, Sir? Big and complex.
Truvelo wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2024 20:45
Still disappointed to see the roundabout for the retail park will remain. Surely something could have been done at Smithton to combine the two junctions into one decent GSJ.
Do you have a link to the approved plans?
If they're similar to the 2016 plans (thread p. 2), I quite agree. Just extend the local road south west of the GSJ to the site of the rbt and remove the rbt.
If you look at the trunking and detrunking documents, it mentions that the existing A96 from the retail park will form the Eastbound carriageway. It looks as if this will still include the Smithton Roundabout going East, before taking an offline alignment East of the roundabout. Thus the Smithton Junction / roundabout will only by grade separated going Westbound?
haggishunter wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 16:30
If you look at the trunking and detrunking documents, it mentions that the existing A96 from the retail park will form the Eastbound carriageway. It looks as if this will still include the Smithton Roundabout going East, before taking an offline alignment East of the roundabout. Thus the Smithton Junction / roundabout will only by grade separated going Westbound?
Have you seen this plan? The Smithton roundabout will become the north roundabout of a full dumbbell GSJ.
haggishunter wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 16:30
If you look at the trunking and detrunking documents, it mentions that the existing A96 from the retail park will form the Eastbound carriageway. It looks as if this will still include the Smithton Roundabout going East, before taking an offline alignment East of the roundabout. Thus the Smithton Junction / roundabout will only by grade separated going Westbound?
Have you seen this plan? The Smithton roundabout will become the north roundabout of a full dumbbell GSJ.
haggishunter wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2024 16:30
If you look at the trunking and detrunking documents, it mentions that the existing A96 from the retail park will form the Eastbound carriageway. It looks as if this will still include the Smithton Roundabout going East, before taking an offline alignment East of the roundabout. Thus the Smithton Junction / roundabout will only by grade separated going Westbound?
Have you seen this plan? The Smithton roundabout will become the north roundabout of a full dumbbell GSJ.
To clarify my previous comment, the new access road between the GSJ and Ashton farm should extend to the retail park as an S2, with the roundabout there removed.
jackal wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2024 14:11
To clarify my previous comment, the new access road between the GSJ and Ashton farm should extend to the retail park as an S2, with the roundabout there removed.
Firstly, shouldn't have tried to make sense of the big plan sheets on a phone!
However, on the quoted point, there is a planned S2 road into the rear of the Retail and Business Park from the proposed Smithton junction as part of the A96-A9 Inshes link road, including a second flyover at the Inshes junction and adding a third lane to the A9 Southbound between the Raigmore Interchange and Inshes Junction (plus Raigmore Interchange to Longman Roundabout upgraded to D3 as part of the grade separation project).
Don't hold out your hopes on all of the Longman works being done. The skint council have requested that Inverness City Deal money destined for Grade Separating Longman be used for a new Corran Ferry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5rmjmrvzlo
They should really just hand the service over to Calmac and be done with it. Calmac ain't perfect as we all know, but the fiasco that was last years summer service at Corran should not be allowed to happen again.
Rob. My mission is to travel every road and visit every town, village and hamlet in the British Isles.
I don't like thinking about how badly I am doing.
wouldn't really make any difference, Corran would be last on calmacs priority list like kintyre as it's not strictly a lifeline since there's a road, and also it's corner ramps due to the tidal flow so probably can't just send the brooshda round.
Has there been any announcement regarding the public consultation. Or are they
A) hoping everyone has forgotten as they did their best to engineer a different response to the one they got which an overwhelming responce to dual it.
B) trying desperately to spin the “dual it” public response it into a , yes we know what the consultation said but we know what you really wanted is 110 mile cycle path.
rileyrob wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2024 21:38
Don't hold out your hopes on all of the Longman works being done. The skint council have requested that Inverness City Deal money destined for Grade Separating Longman be used for a new Corran Ferry: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm5rmjmrvzlo
They should really just hand the service over to Calmac and be done with it. Calmac ain't perfect as we all know, but the fiasco that was last years summer service at Corran should not be allowed to happen again.
The government could just fund the replacement instead... If they won't do it for Highland Council, then why would they do it for Calmac? It's not as if the council is a private company.
