Balfour Beattie

[Kathy Bowles]

What are the odds of the work being finished by Christmas?

[joker]

Which Christmas?

[Mona Lott]

My information is that it's not due to be finished until next spring. Where did your Xmas thing come from?

[moonraker]

i think they will be finished for christmas
they are so clean and tidy
they keep the roads in good shape
they fill the pubs at night
the stop go men i think one of you is the joker :twisted
i take it you sleep all day work all night
there is a lot of work getting done at the caravan park next to t n t
looks like more housing

[Mona Lott]

I think they're doing a blooming good job. Horrible work, long hours but they're very pleasant guys and gals and, at the end of the day, we'll have stopped discharging our raw sewage into the sea and made the island a bit more modern and respectable..................3 cheers for the BB boys!!

[NickB]

.

at the end of the day, we'll have stopped discharging our raw sewage into the sea

Not everyone is 100% convinced of this . . .

I spoke to a man down a hole and mentioned local doubts. He replied,

"It's all technology that's been tried and failed elsewhere"

I do wonder why they didn't just give everyone a new septic tank, install them and buy a dedicated sludge wagon to empty them once a year or whenever. At a current estimated cost of something like £100,000 per dwelling we will shortly be in the bizarre position of living in a property where the connection to our khazi is worth more than the actual house.

[Mona Lott]

Stone age thinking, Nick. Get real, get modern. And don't believe every wee man down a hole. Mains sewage treatment is millennia old, not rocket science, just common sense and science. Some folks just don't like change, I guess, and fear it. As to cost, this place has had such a minimal spend over centuries, it's reasonable, I suppose, that the more backward of its citizens baulk at having money spent on them at last to provide basic normal infrastructure.

[NickB]

.
It's the storage and pumping arrangements that are in doubt, as you say sewage treatment isn't rocket science.

What have you got against septic tanks? Or reed beds for that matter? Reed beds are modern thinking, the system they are putting in here isn't.

And do you regard £100,000 per house as a reasonable cost? Ellenabeich is still going to be pumping raw sewage into the sea in any event.

I don't think anyone objects to having some money spent on the infrastructure, but affordable housing or decent roads might be a better use of the cash - and I expect the people on Luing wouldn't have minded seeing it spent on a bridge. A TV transmitter relay and a mobile phone mast might be welcomed by a lot of people as well.

And talking about getting modern - I don't suppose anyone has had the foresight to spend an extra quid or so a metre and put fibre optic cables down the new piping so we can get the next generation of broadband . . .

- NickB

[Mona Lott]

The upgraded road is coming and isn't an alternative to a mains sewage system and a proper treatment plant. Confusing it with a bridge doesn't help either. Plus the system will be extended to other parts of the island in due course. I personally don't think the spend is unreasonable at all, given the lack of infrastructural expenditure here until now and the vast sums spent elsewhere on white elephants. Why can't folk welcome progress and positive change despite the temporary chaos of construction? Do you enjoy being disadvantaged and polluting? I suppose a yachtie who routinely discharges sewage to coastal waters would be less sensitive than others....?

[NickB]

I suppose a yachtie who routinely discharges sewage to coastal waters would be less sensitive than others....?

Mona. you are being deliberately obtuse, unnecessarily patronising and objectionably personal. I presume from this analysis of your character that you are in fact Longshanks expressing his feminine side.

I can tell the difference between a sewage system, a road and a bridge, and it is undoubtedly true that the island needed new sewage provision. I am merely questioning whether it is being provided in the most cost-effective, technologically sound and environmentally friendly manner. I guess time will tell.

Why suggesting that some other system might have been more appropriate to the local conditions is 'anti-progress' escapes me I am afraid.

Now, please tell us all more about the forthcoming upgraded road, as you obviously have information the rest of us are not privy to.

- NickB

[Mona Lott]

Nick, there was a clue given in the Community Council minutes of May 2008:

The Chairman reaffirmed that the B844 is earmarked for significant investment once Scottish Water had finished their operations – probably in 2010.

[longshanks]

I suppose a yachtie who routinely discharges sewage to coastal waters would be less sensitive than others....?

Mona. you are being deliberately obtuse, unnecessarily patronising and objectionably personal. I presume from this analysis of your character that you are in fact Longshanks expressing his feminine side.
- NickB

I don't have a feminine side, I think. Well maybe I do. Actually I don't.

I'm with my good friend NickMcB on this one. Whinbank are getting reed beds rather than being connected, so why not all of us? I would use mine to grow mustard and cress.

Longfart (constipated by necessity)

[S Kerr]

I can tell the difference between a sewage system, a road and a bridge

Why should there be a difference anyway? Perhaps the functions of all three could be combined with a barrage scheme with biomass generation and tidal turbines. Way to go.

[Mona Lott]

You sound like a crowd of true treehugging eco-warriers! Reed bed treatment is a tertiary approach, requiring primary and secondary purification beforehand. It requires large garden areas, suitable topography and geology and a wish by the owner to spend a lot of time gardening. I imagine it might not be a great selling asset either. What's wrong with treating it in the same way as the civilised real world has for thousands of years, out-of-sight and out-of-mind? And what's wrong with the establishment spending some money on Seil at long last? I guess that you lot would like to power the planet with windmills too?! Daft as a brush!

[dubhsgeir]

What`s wrong with you people it`ll save money in the long run , road improvements will follow` water classification will get better. Arguably you could say the work has brought christianity to the fore again never before seen since the days of Calum Cille. What with men who previously never seen the inside of Church, now are crusading to reinstate the Sabbath as a day of rest and suddenly showing interest in Armistice day wow even standing in the trenches using their bodies as weapons against these evil and satanic digging machines, it`s a miracle.

[Seventhseil]

Didn't realise that clachan seil recognised armistice day........

[NickB]

.

What's wrong with treating it in the same way as the civilised real world has for thousands of years, out-of-sight and out-of-mind?

Sewage from this property and those adjacent has been staying quite nicely out of sight and out of mind for the last 22 years thanks to the communal septic tanks in the field in front of the house. All very civilised and already paid for, so excuse me if I find £100,000 of public money per property a little pricy for something quite a few properties didn't need.

Of course, all the properties that were discharging directly to the sea needed to be fixed, but I am not convinced that the current solution is the best from either an engineering or a cost standpoint. Concerns have been expressed re. the storage capacity of the scheme in the event of a prolonged power cut, which could lead to much worse discharges into the bay than the current arrangements lead to. In view of the UK government's failure to fully grasp the nettle of new grid capacity power outages are very much on the cards in the coming decade. Septic tanks would have been a satisfactory answer for most properties. They are much cheaper, and not dependent on a connection to the national grid.

Lets hope when the new scheme is finished that it does stay very much out of sight and out of mind, and that when the road is upgraded and resurfaced it doesn't have to be dug up again too soon.

- NickB

[Mona Lott]

My darling Nick, methinks you're a bit of an old fuddy duddy dinosaur and an extreme negative thinker. Give the project a chance to succeed before you carry on whingeing!

[Seventhseil]

Any more affirmative action by the clachan branch of the sabbath preservation society ????

[Eric the Viking]

I notice this weekend the Sauerkraut was conspicuous by his absence at the Goulash Archipelago