Readers’ letters: Scotland needs a a Civil Resilience Air Service

The incidents raise a wider question: are Scotland’s existing aviation arrangements structured to meet the challenges of the future?

Currently, helicopter support is delivered through a range of organisations and contracts, each designed around specific roles including policing, search and rescue, and emergency response. These capabilities provide essential services, but modern emergencies increasingly cross traditional boundaries.

A wildfire can involve evacuation, missing people, medical emergencies and infrastructure protection. Severe flooding or storms may require aerial assessment, transport and rescue capability.

One possible approach would be the creation of a Scottish Civil Resilience Air Service, bringing together aviation resources into a shared national capability available to support emergency services when required.

The concept could involve a mixed fleet based at Inverness, with light helicopters providing rapid assessment, thermal imaging and command support, alongside larger helicopters capable of heavy lift, wildfire suppression, rescue operations and emergency logistics.

The estimated cost of establishing such a capability could be around £180 million to £220m, with annual operating costs of £35m to £45m.

The service would provide a flexible national aviation resource, allowing firefighters, police, rescue teams and other agencies to access specialist aircraft when needed.

Scotland faces a choice: continue developing separate aviation capabilities, or explore a more integrated approach designed around the emergencies of the future.

Steven Scott Taylor, Edinburgh

Not so wild

Contrary to your editorial (22 July), electricity is not “the main source of power”. Indeed, 80 per cent of power is generated by so-called “fossil fuels”, which is one reason why we should be exploiting the North Sea in the same way as Norway does. It also provides employment and taxes, which a certain Ed Miliband clearly doesn’t understand.

In a UK (and Europe) dominated by fatuous nonsense about climate change, it is worthy of note that a huge percentage of “wildfires” are deliberately caused by people. In France alone, it is reckoned to be about 90 per cent of such fires.

Andrew HN Gray, Edinburgh

Spin cycle

So, after only 20 years, the ever-so-sustainable ScottishPower Renewables Whitelee wind farm, sorry subsidy farm, has already reached the end of its short life (your report, 23 July).

The owner’s claim that fewer larger turbines are more efficient is breathtaking, and shame on the Scottish government for falling for the spin! Did our brick-sized mobile phones double or half in size as they became more efficient?

Current turbine blades have been tweaked, over many years, to the nth degree, but the inexorable laws of physics demand that all that can now be done is to make the turbines even larger, even more hungry for materials, even more space-consuming, even more destructive even more difficult to recycle, even more damaging, even more unsightly and, with blades that travel in excess of 200mph, even more lethal to wildlife.

Developers are foisting giant, offshore turbines onto beleaguered rural communities, onshore. Far from boasting about “super” turbines we are in reality being subjected to yet another load of whoppers from the wind industry.

George Herraghty, Elgin, Moray

Equal billing?

Who does John Swinney think he is? The rest of us know that he is leader of a devolved authority with wide-ranging powers which he has failed to exercise for the good of the Scottish people, because he is too busy banging on about his obsession with a referendum to break up our country.

With the advent of a new PM, he now tells us, in his best ponderous Rev IM Jolly impersonation, that he does not think he should be expected to converse with the UK’s Scotland Secretary, Douglas Alexander. Oh no, Andy Burnham should meet Swinney and confer on equal terms.

How often does Swinney need to be told that it is in the nature of the UK that devolution has created various subordinate authorities with ultimate authority residing with His Majesty’s Government in London? He is not Burnham’s equal, and those of us suffering under Swinney’s rule should be thankful for that.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Left behind

It’s noticeable that Andy Burnham has already put two cost of living measures into action in the next few months while we still wait to hear when John Swinney’s pre-election pledges will be enacted. VAT will come off energy bills from October while the £2 bus fare cap will be introduced in England from January.

Mr Swinney has also pledged the bus fare cap but we are still to hear when it will be rolled out and why he’s prioritising parts of western Scotland. One can only hope that the funding consequentials will give him an excuse to roll it out universally in January. In the last three years the single fare in Edinburgh has risen by a third. It’s ridiculous to penalise areas that have endured some of the highest increases. Acton on Mr Swinney’s pledge to lower essential food prices is still awaited, yet many will have voted for the SNP expecting help now.

As Andy Burnham said, there has been talk of reducing the cost of living for too long without action. It’s time Mr Swinney acted rather than make empty promises or show regional bias otherwise those struggling with the cost of living here will fall behind the rest of the UK.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Church closures

Whilst grateful to Rev Dr Rennie (“Building Future”, Letters, 1 July) for replying to my original letter (“Heritage Lost”, 16 June) his explanation does little to assure me, nor address the issues I raised.

There is no doubt that “church life has changed dramatically in recent decades” not least the shedding of an unprecedented number of properties (334 in 2023-2025 alone, apparently). Rev Rennie takes the line that the Church of Scotland (whether General Trustees, local presbyteries, or the committees appointed to wield the axe) is somehow being charitable by relieving congregations of a burden. What of those congregations for whom closure is not of their wish or making, who are not burdened by maintenance costs of buildings which though “large and old” may in fact be perfectly fit for purpose? “Disposals ease the stresses”… Really?

The threat to our collective cultural ecclesiastical assets, is approaching a scale unprecedented since the Reformation.

Rev Rennie asserts that the General Trustees “cannot be seen as a heritage society”. One could ask whether acting as a property development society is an appropriate way of demonstrating their “aim to be good and faithful stewards of the Church’s resources”.

Sadly, chasing a quick buck appears to be of greater interest than truly showing care, compassion, sensitivity and moral responsibility. Congregations who strove to erect, to beautify, their places of worship to the glory of God, and continue to use them whilst adapting to need and demand, are being disavowed.

The “Church of Scotland’s primary mission, the advancement of the Christian faith in word and deeds, remains”. Can Rev Rennie, his fellow General Trustees and all who, unquestioning, carry out their instruction, really ask us to believe this when they act like landowners during the Clearances – imposing their uninvited enforcements on local communities?

Robin H Rodger, Perth

Paying a visit

As the Commonwealth Games gets under way there is a common problem about to commence too, that of visiting dignitaries.

Our former Prime Minister, Keir (never here) Starmer is an excellent example of a globetrotting politician. The SNP is not particularly averse to sending its ministers abroad for “fact finding missions” or “trade” either. We even have Scottish foreign "embassies".There always appears to be some form of “trade” meeting in order to justify visits. The World Cup springs to mind.

In an era of Zoom and television coverage surely there is less need to send officials across the world? Then there is the detrimental effect upon net zero that so many politicians espouse, except when there is a trip on offer.

The cost of all of this is borne by taxpayers who, in many cases, cannot afford to go abroad themselves. Hardly a day passes when there is not a conference, major sporting event or head of state meeting. Is all of this political attendance really necessary?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

King’s Park

When I was a boy in the 1940s and early 1950s, in the reign of King George VI, Holyrood Park was known as King’s Park. On Queen Elizabeth II’s accession tradition was followed and it became Queen’s Park.

Will it now become King’s Park once again? This would seem appropriate given that there is a king on the throne and the upcoming line of succession is predominantly male.

Donald Lewis, Gifford, East Lothian

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