More views just in

APTSec is continuing to post views that are being forwarded to me regarding the MIR and issues and queries surrounding.

A view from Nairnshire

"Thank you for sending me hard copy of the draft MIR which has proved very useful; it fits readily under my enlarging camera. Having now read the bulk of the report, I am concerned that it does not properly fulfill its function in a major respect and would be grateful for clarification and further information.at your earliest convenience.

This is NOT a response to the MIR; it is a request for the information necessary to make an informed response. In view of the short timescale allowed for response on what is a vital matter throughout Highland, I would ask you to supply the information with all speed. I feel strongly that, in order to meet the requirements laid down by Government, it should be made available to the general public forthwith.

Planning Circular 1, February 2009, states that main issues reports should be "sufficiently clear and precise" for the public to make "meaningful comments" and must contain "one or more sets of reasonable alternative proposals"

In the case of the A96 Corridor in a section comprising 15 pages there are two very short paragraphs purporting to give such alternatives. Each is simply a slightly different "approach" or way of arriving at exactly the same end as the Council's preferred option: neither is a true alternative. For Caithness and North Sutherland and for Easter Ross the formula used is "The Council has not identified any reasonable alternatives to the Preferred Option on this issue". There is no indication of the inter-related effects of one area's option on its neighbours.

Clearly no choice is offered. It is therefore farcical to suggest that members of the public can make any choice. let alone an informed one. I would ask you please to supply a true reasonable alternative for each area, or at very least a reasoned explanation of the grounds on which it was decided - and by whom - that no such alternative exists. Without this information the MIR does not fulfil its remit."

Yours sincerely