Time for real community benefit

Now that the Viking Energy scheme is unstoppable, the over 1,000 members of Sustainable Shetland have a real opportunity to show, rather than tell, how we can transform Shetland with truly community based ethical and sustainable development projects by taking ‘the bribe’ and show both Viking Energy and the community at large what a positive sustainable Shetland can be like.

Agreement reached on £2.2m-a-year Viking Energy community benefit fund

Further complaining about the bribe – let’s call it what it is – will get us nowhere.

Get in touch with and/or stand to be on your local community council to effect real change.

It is also a huge opportunity to show how the Shetland Charitable Trust and other trusts have got community involvement and engagement with the disbursement of funds so very badly wrong on so many occasions adopting a paternalistic, elitist and top-down approach.

Let’s get busy and not waste any more energy (no pun intended) on what we can’t do, but what we can.

James J Paton
Lerwick