Cooper’s clique

I feel that there is a clique of councillors led by Alistair Cooper who seem to be misleading the community of Whalsay and themselves.

It seems everybody throughout the world at present knows there is a global financial crisis that isn’t going to improve in the five years but these members think millions of pounds will appear for a tunnel to Whalsay.

I feel that these members just don’t want to see any money invested in Whalsay’s transport links. So they are using this as a way of delaying any investment in the transport links to Whalsay for as long as possible.

In their wildest dreams there is very little chance of any substantial amount of funding coming from either the Scottish government or Europe anywhere near the timescale they are dreaming of.

One of our three councillors, Robert Henderson, told me that they were going to look at funding for a tunnel in a matter of months, not years. He also said that if there was no funding to be found for the tunnel in this time the ferry option would be back on the table. This has never been mentioned in the press but I was assured of this by Mr Henderson.

If at some point the Hendra, Giera and Fivla have to be taken out of service due to having passengers under deck level. This will cause extensive strain on the commuters of Whalsay.

How will the members of the Whalsay community who have tried and managed to hinder the improvements for the future generations of Whalsay commuters feel then? One ferry on a severely reduced service for the commuters of Whalsay? I hope I don’t have to experience this possibility.

Barry Robertson
Tripwell,
Symbister,
Whalsay.