Its been a busy week for STS in the news this week. First, David Ross did a fantastic column in the Herald this week. This got under the skin of the whole issue looking at trust port accountability and the Scottish Parliament petition and if you want a quick insightful overview of what’s happening, read this:
Earlier in the week the Northern Scot had a piece quoting the local Greens who say Moray Council should take a stance on STS. Great idea – it will affect Moray as much as anywhere else:
http://www.northern-scot.co.uk/News/Party-says-stop-ship-to-ship-oil-transfers-20012017.htm
The P&J was busy – first a piece about the 38 degrees petition breaking the 20,000 barrier. Well who knows what’s going on there – after moving slowly towards 20,000 for the last few months, it’s taken off again – a few days later it its now 24,300 – a lot of people think this is a bad idea!
https://www.energyvoice.com/other-news/129701/campaign-ship-ship-oil-transfer-breaks-20000-barrier/
Then a couple of days ago, the BBC reported the old “this is just standard protocol” alternative truth from the Port Authority when asked about having to withdraw the old licence. No it’s not standard protocol. It is so not standard that it’s never happened before. Since the regulations came in the MCA have never had an application that has received this much negative publicity. We have forced the withdrawal of the application – no doubt. Why are they doing it? Probably because, with the threat of judicial review hanging over their heads, they know that they have to be squeaky clean and the initial licence application was such a mess that there is no hope of covering all the bases. Unfortunately it means all the comments received over the past year in relation to the existing application are null and void. They all have to be made again. So it is up to us – that’s me, you and everyone we know – to make sure that when this new application goes in the MCA, the Port Authority, our Councillors and politicians are made acutely aware that we will not accept this in our seas.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-38748512
Then another piece earlier in the week in the P&J with the port on the defensive:
Yet another piece in The National:
The Ross-shire also ran a piece but hasn’t published it online. The funny thing is, just over a year ago when this all started we were up against it, writing press statements, trying to get the press to cover this – now a year later, the media are self-sustaining – we rarely find ourselves putting out a statement any more – 7 articles in one week without us even putting anything out there tells us that this is a big story that is not going away. The CFPA should go do a google news search on themselves – there is only one issue that dominates and it doesn’t exactly give them positive publicity. If they need some free marketing tips then we’d be happy to oblige. Number one – drop ship to ship! Even the best crisis PR company can’t do anything when you are trying to defend the indefensible.
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