Cromarty Rising

A slight diversion, maybe that’s what was intended, read on.

The Cromarty and District Community Council (CDCC) has been against the STS application from the very start. When the first meeting was held in Cromarty back in January a secret ballot was undertaken of all Cromarty residents who attended. 100% voted against the CFPA application which gave CDCC a powerful mandate.  Today the chair of CDCC was approached by a bemused newspaper editor who wanted to check if it was true that CDCC had now come out in support of STS. That was the story that was doing the rounds. So in case any newspaper editors are thinking of printing this – it is a lie. Sorry to disappoint. The people of Cromarty and 22 other community councils still oppose this application. The source of the information was described vaguely as “a group working with the Cromarty Firth Port Authority”.

We are used to hearing truth distorting spin from the said Port Authority however this move smacks of desperation – spreading mis-information is a classic crisis management technique.

To date the Invergordon CC is the only one to come out in favour – not exactly backing up the spin that “most people are in favour” as quoted by the Port. Interestingly from the CC meeting video there appeared to be one member of the public present at their last meeting. There was a post on their Facebook page asking if STS was on the agenda – the reply was that it wasn’t. See below:

Invergordon Community Council No its not on the agenda. We did discuss it a couple of meetings ago. With regards Nigg we do not know why they didn’t put themselves forward.

Like · Reply · 7 December at 08:50

Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be any minutes for any meeting available.The December 7th meeting was video recorded – you could see it on the Invergordon CC Facebook site however it seems to have disappeared. In any case, we couldn’t see where STS was discussed or when they took their vote. The following day it was announced the Invergordon CC were in favour of STS so presumably it was discussed at the December 7th meeting. From the video, Councillor’s Smith and Rattray were present. Councillor Smith has publicly stated in the Scotsman that she has “no concerns with the application” and was quoted by the Ross-shire Journal as saying “we need this”. This would appear to fly in the face of her party policy which had a resolution passed at conference to oppose STS. Councillor Rattray is employed by Port of Cromarty Firth Services.  Anyway, the point is – the CC have given their support to the CFPA but appear not asked the people of Invergordon, even denying that STS was being discussed.

We’ll do a follow up on our top 10 mis-truths that have been put out by the Port Authority. “We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously”. Aye, right!