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Did anyone else see this article in the Daily Telegraph?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2006/09/05/nbeach.xml
I guess a few million people read the Telegraph. What will they think of Caithness now? A place too dangerous for children?
SEPA has denied the story(see: http://www.sepa.org.uk/news/releases/view.asp?id=434&y=2006says) but the damage is done.
The only person who is telling people to stay off his beach is the English toff who owns it, Mr Minter. Why would anyone want to draw attention to millions of people the fact that their land is polluted? Why has he got a public relations company working for him to get the national media interested in publicising the problem? Maybe he thinks the publicity will get him £20 million in compensation. All that the rest of us get is tarnished by the bad publicity and questions from friends in the south wondering why we live in a landscape that is too dangerous to bring up children. Surely if the beach was dangerous the council or the health board would have shut down. They haven't, so why do we have to keep reading tripe like this in the newspapers. What do others think?
robglysen
10-Sep-06, 09:17
I'll swim in it, I live down the road from it, I have swum in it a few times, I know all about the particles. Anyone with a problem can go and wear their cotton wool health and safety suit.
Mr Minters not short of a bob or two, just how much money does he think he needs!
Countryman
13-Sep-06, 08:19
Sandside (Minter) PR firm are at it again - Sunday times last Sunday the Guardian yesterday and now on Sandside web site - what will this man do next - local press this week I expect
http://www.sandsideestate.com/press.asp
I expect the local press will feature a letter from him and his sidekick!
Niall Fernie
13-Sep-06, 09:47
You have to wonder whats behind it all after reading this page on the sandside site:
http://www.sandsideestate.com/ec.asp
I am sick to death of this man and his hysterical outpourings. Like many others, I never want to see another letter from him in the Groat (or anywhere else for that matter).
All this fuss about particles is nonsense. It has also caused huge problems for the Dunnet beach people and prevented many of the usual activies. Until someone can prove that touching one of these terrifying things is going to cause instant death and destruction it's time we went back to ignoring them.
I know nothing about Mr Minter but if I owned a beautiful piece of landscape that a 3rd party had polluted I'd want them to put it right. Whether or not he wants to develop the land for profit is irrelevant.
I know nothing about Mr Minter but if I owned a beautiful piece of landscape that a 3rd party had polluted I'd want them to put it right. Whether or not he wants to develop the land for profit is irrelevant.
I take the thread to be about the image Mr Minter is creating about Caithness as a county, rather than just Sandside beach.
Saying that, the warning not to take children on the beach is unfounded - there have been no official warnings that the beach is unsafe, so is this sign merely to prevent people from using the beach?
In one of the statements, Mr Minter stated that the beach used to be very popular, but in my opinion, the person responsible for the bad image the beach has is Mr Minter himself. :roll:
According to the article the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency have put up the signs, not just Mr Minter. Is that not official?
It also says that since the initial find which he was assured was a "one-off," 66 more particles including bits of carbon rod have been found. That's enough to keep me away, but what about others? At what point does it become a risk in your opinion? 100 particles, 1000, 100,000?
SEPA responds to inaccurate reports about Sandside
4 Sep 2006 - EXT01-B04
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has concerns about a number of inaccurate statements published today in an article by the Daily Telegraph regarding public use of Sandside Beach.
It is claimed that SEPA is ‘advising people not to take children on the sands.’ This is completely untrue. SEPA has never issued this advice and we are gravely concerned that this misinformation is in the public domain.
The article also implies that signage on the beach warning of radiation is a recent development. SEPA would like to point out that the signs erected at the bay are not new and have been in existence for a number of years. Furthermore, the signs are the property of Sandside Estate and do not belong to SEPA as suggested in the Daily Telegraph article.
Quote taken from: http://www.sepa.org.uk/news/releases/view.asp?id=434&y=2006says
This states that SEPA have never given the advice that beach is unsafe for children. Therefore, I took it to be unofficial!
I read the Guardian article recently and it sounded fine to me. It sounds to me as if you are scapegoating Mr. Minter. Was there really a plan to use plastic containers previously used to contain radioactive waste as Christmas decorations? If so then that was truly appalling. On the other hand if it is false that is equally appalling. I must say though that this thread sounds to me like the muttering of a lynch mob, sadly apporpriate for a message board that produced the anti-muslim thread....
True or false? (The Guardian Sept 12)
"Nor, sadly, is there anything unusual about the plant's later cock-ups. Last month, for example, Dounreay was fined £2m for spilling radioactive waste. Last year its regulators reported that 250 safety failures had taken place since 1999. Among them was Dounreay's generous gift to the community of containers used to store low-level radioactive waste. They were to be turned into a Santa's grotto for local children. Another report showed that fissile waste was being stored in paint tins or simply left where it had been found. One former employee claimed that samples from Dounreay's radioactive effluent tanks were collected for analysis with a Wellington boot on a piece of string"
Quote taken from: http://www.sepa.org.uk/news/releases/view.asp?id=434&y=2006says
This states that SEPA have never given the advice that beach is unsafe for children. Therefore, I took it to be unofficial!
Good to know.
Either way there are too many particles being found for my liking. I wouldn't take my children there.
Good to know.
Either way there are too many particles being found for my liking. I wouldn't take my children there.
I agree here - I personally wouldn't take my children there either, but nor should people be told not to take their children there.
People should be given the facts and be allowed to decide for themselves.
Having read Mr. Minter's web site there is little doubt that he is his own worst enemy with his utopian projects for Sandside. But that is not the issue, The issue is one of nuclear waste and the (alleged) near criminal incomptence of procedures at Dounereay. Mr. Minter is the ideal target to deflect this criticism. Personally I dont care if he plans a nudist camp with windmills and tsunamis. I imagine the local beurocracy would tie him up in swathes of red - or at least glowing - tape.
Safety is this issue - not over-ambitious development schemes.
webmannie
13-Sep-06, 21:57
True or false? (The Guardian Sept 12)
"Nor, sadly, is there anything unusual about the plant's later cock-ups. Last month, for example, Dounreay was fined £2m for spilling radioactive waste. Last year its regulators reported that 250 safety failures had taken place since 1999. Among them was Dounreay's generous gift to the community of containers used to store low-level radioactive waste. They were to be turned into a Santa's grotto for local children. Another report showed that fissile waste was being stored in paint tins or simply left where it had been found. One former employee claimed that samples from Dounreay's radioactive effluent tanks were collected for analysis with a Wellington boot on a piece of string"
Wow, you should get a job as a news reporter with the News of the World. Sensational, absolutely sensational!
All the expert bodies who have studied these particles came to the same conclusion - that the risk was very low and, even if someone came into contact with one, it would do them little or no harm. So why does Minter persist in claiming they are a huge hazard and employ a PR company to campaign in the national newspapers? He knows his beach cant be cleaned up so long as the seabed off Dounreay is dirty. And who would spend a million pounds buying land next door to a clapped-out reprocessing works and then complain so loudly when he finds it's a little tad dirty? He recently bought up even more land around Dounreay. That doesn't sound like someone who is worried about radioactivity, that sounds like someone on the make.
Maybe he is taking his revenge on Caithness after it snubbed his attempt - thank God - to become Lord Liuetanent.
robglysen
18-Sep-06, 21:45
Its a disgrace how money attracts money, so dounreay gives him X million to stop banging on about it, then what. Does he spend it on the beach/facilities or just slap it in a high interest account and go play snooker on his big gold table. How does giving him a giant wad of government cash (from our taxes) benefit anyone.
Answer: it doesn't.
he spends it on lining his walls with deer skins
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