Joined up thinking.

There was a public consultation session today. Our village is Blackness, a small place, few houses, a pub, a castle, a yacht club, small marina, bugger all parking and that is pretty much it. So the proposals were presented and must have cost a fortune in feasibility studies all with the intention of bringing in more visitors and improving their experience. 

The Strategic Tourism Infrastucture Development Plan

“The goal is balancing the need to enhance the visitor experience, to support the priorities of the local community and to nurture the sensitive environment with appropriate infrastructure investment”

All a load of old fanny when the council are trying to take the heart out of the village by shutting down the primary school which will mean the loss of the village hall and shutting the public toilets!

Electric bikes are part of their sustainable solution. From where? The nearest public parking or rail station is four miles away.

Anyway one interesting option is discussing with the Maid of the Forth operators (a small pleasure boat that runs trips out to the islands in the river) was to have it land at the castle (it has a jetty which can only be accessed at high tide.) so all those Outlander nerds can approach the castle by water without worrying about having their cars on double yellow lines or the local hoodlums bolt cutting the lock on their electric bikes.

Reading between the lines I just feel they are trying to ramp up visitors to the castle and make life more difficult for the poor buggers that have to live there.

Rant over.