Letters / Strategic vision needed for the future
While it was encouraging to read your articles today about ‘Increased interest in moving to Shetland’ and ‘Space centre could result in bright future for Unst’, as the owner of a tourism-related business in Yell, I am staring into a black hole of no visitors in the foreseeable future and a black hole for the whole of the Shetland tourism industry.
With the closure of so many hotels and restaurants, it is difficult to know why tourists will return to Shetland, except to experience our wonderful scenery and wilderness, which we seem determined to destroy with wind farms.
The outlook for much of the rest of the Shetland economy also looks desolate. In the years to come we will look back wistfully on the oil years, and wonder what we did with all that oil money. Fishing feels like the only positive note for Shetland at the moment.
It is depressing to read about councillors arguing about the use of our reserves. They have got the cart before the horse. Before we even think about what we can afford, and where the money comes from, we need to develop a strategic vision for the future of Shetland, and we need to develop that vision very quickly. Then, and only then, can we plan the investment to support that strategy.
It does not feel as though our councillors have the time to think about the future. Whatever happened to the Shetland Partnership? What are they doing to plan Shetland’s way out of this black mess.
Alan Skinner
New House
Cullivoe
Yell
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