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View Full Version : Fit's in 'e Coorier 'e day



Nwicker60
19-Sep-12, 10:32
Courier headlines: September 19, 2012

ELDERLY people in shelter housing accommodation claim their lives are being put at risk due to the lack of a resident warden. Tenants of the 34 houses in the Oldfield Court and Queen’s Court complex in Thurso have signed a petition demanding that a warden is available on site, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to care for them. The calls comes after a long-serving warden retired and moved out of her flat which was then rented out to applicants on the Highland housing register scheme, last summer. Highland Council housing officers met with residents this week, who had signed the petition, to discuss their concerns.

A MAJOR blunder by council finance officials, saw them pay £25,000 into the personal bank account of a Highland
businessman whose company had sunk into liquidation. Highland Council’s creditors department in Inverness sanctioned the payment to the contractor despite a letter being sent to another part of the authority’s finance service, warning that his firm had gone into liquidation. Efforts to recover the two payments which totalled £24,848 and were sanctioned in March, have proved fruitless and the alleged fraud was reported to police on Monday.

THE exodus of Highland Council workers from Wick town centre to make way for a multi-million pound office redevelopment, is to go ahead this winter after a lease for a temporary replacement premises was signed last week. This means members of the public wishing to access the council’s service point, will be heading to Girnigoe Street for around the next two years as the Market Place staff decant to former Department for Work and Pensions premises. The £8.5 million project is running two months behind schedule due to problems in getting the owners of the DWP to sign on the dotted line.

UNFAIR charges are to be levied on delivering power from the Pentland Firth, compared to the south of England, according to the far north’s MSP. Rob Gibson blasted the UK Government which is set to impose increased transmission charges for transporting electricity from developments in Scotland’s first marine energy park to the grid, in the face of an independent review from Ofgem to reform transmission network use of system charges. Although the review has improved matters for generators on the Scottish mainland, charges in the Northern Isles are set to rocket, adding significant cost and threatening the economic viability of wave and tidal projects that are in their early stages of development in the Pentland Firth.

WITH Caithness reckoned to be one of the best places on the UK mainland to witness the Northern Lights, a local hotelier is pressing for more to be done by the tourist industry to highlight the attraction. Pentland Lodge hotel co-owner, Liz Sutherland,said the dark skies above the far north, are the best in the county to witness the lights. Her plea comes as scientists at Lancaster University have put a call out to the public to help compile a list of the best places in the UK to photograph the Auarora Borealis.

LAST-DITCH talks are taking place to try to stop the closure of a Lybster hotel due to shut its doors on Monday. Oxford Hotels and Inns area director, David Irvine, met lease holder Andrew Bowles to discuss ways of keeping the Portland Arms Hotel open into the winter. Mr Bowles was set to call it a day after holding the lease for only three months, citing high rates and running costs along with a poor tourist season, for the move.

BATHING waters in Caithness have passed strict conditions regarding the safety of pollution levels. Dunnet and Thurso bays passed maximum guidelines outlined by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency in its 2012 Bathing Waters report for the summer season. SEPA sampled most of the water 20 times to assess their quality over the course of this year-s season.

AN Olympics-inspired glass baton has completed a relay of the UK with a final stop in Lybster. The work was designed especially for the Glass Games 2012 and has linked a series of glass-related events throughout the county. It is now on display at North Lands Creative Glass for the centre’s international conference.

AFTER celebrating the clinching of their place in the North of Scotland cup final in a midweek tussle with Brora Rangers, Wick Academy showed there was no hangover on Saturday as they left malt whisky country with three points. Gary Weir enjoyed a double which received a toast from his team-mated as he became the first player in the club’s history to score 100 competitive goals. The final score against Rothes was 4-0 for the Scorries.