Fair greetings to all readers, Call me self opinionated, an old moan or whatever, but I know what I like and I know what's right and what's wrong. But the whole culture and uniqueness of the beloved Islands will be lost in the next few decades unless a fit and proper planning policy is put into place to preserve what remains of what to me Orkney is all about. I know we must move with the times, but great care should be taken and attention to detail is vital. When ever possible any new buildings of major size should be in keeping with the traditional Orkney stone, that way they will blend into the surroundings and not stick out like a sore thumb. I believe that tourist would like to see the same stone used at Skara Brae still being used in Orkney today. I wonder how many of Orkney's children have yet to visit places like Skara Brae etc. For families on low income this would be an impossibility as the entrance fee is beyond their means. Of course they could always go to the multi-million pound new library and read about it and see pictures of the site! These ancient sites are every Orcadians heritage, it's our roots, places where communities worked for the common good. No one seems to want wind farms, but I think we need to realise we must have them as a clean form of energy. They may not look nice, but would you rather have a polluted atmosphere?. I enjoyed a rare step back in time at the week-end, when I paid a visit to the up stairs of Wm Shearers in Victoria Street. How lovely to see the old wooden floors and beams, a real coal fire and old shop memorabilia, with all the Xmas goods tastefully displayed, you could imagine yourself back in Victorian times. If I could chose a period in time that I could re-live in Orkney it would be Victorian times so I could savour the old stone buildings before they became covered in plaster and grey-white dashing (yuk). Take care Grumpy -------Original Message------- From: ORCADIA-L@rootsweb.com Date: 24 November 2003 21:03:46 To: ORCADIA-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [] Re: Stephen's take on The Forests of Orkney Dear George, Nature's great architect, as far as Orkney is concerned, is man. Apart from the small detail of the basic climate and geological features, clay deposits and the flooded landscape ( from 10,000 years ago ice melt) man has dictated, mainly without intention, every aspect of the Orkney that you know today. From the blanket peat bogs formation 3000 years ago to the entirely (farmers) man made green fields of the 20th century man has caused the pre-conditions that determined what things now look like. As a point of note you should be aware that organic farming is almost non-existent here. Subsidy drunk Farmers post war have and still do use extensive agro-chemical methods to force grass crops out of the land to maximise stock quotas. Mono-culture is the name of the game. Extensive land ownership by the RSPB added to large areas that are impossible to farm are what protects the "natural environment". A visit to the main part of Stronsay (excepting Rothiesholm), which by its nature (flat and rolling) shows what farmers would do if possible - over cultivated and mono-grass fields to the shoreline, very little natural environment at all. Re-establishing sustainable scrub/woodland and wildflower meadows is complex, long term and difficult.but is certainly, in my opinion, a more "natural" direction to go than species poor subsidy driven grassland. Sorry Charles, but I agree wholeheartedly with the observations on the new library. Splendid, and unusually for Orkney not from the big byre school of architecture, it may be, but it also represents the seemingly limitless money available to turn Kirkwall into a poor version of Inverness, with all the added benefits of one way systems, vandalism, litter and over centralised population in a nodal conurbation. Do our overseas cousins know of the true danger to our big sky country ? Not a few trees, but the snorting sounds of the porcine big landowners heading for the trough of Windfarm cash that is appearing as a deafening roar stage left ? The poor befuddled council seemingly incapable of doing anything to stop random turbines littering the land ? regards, Simon