Good News for Highland Coastal Communities
Friday, 22 July 2011
Credit where credit is due. Today's announcement from George Osborne and Danny Alexander that a new development fund will be available to coastal communities around the UK, derived from Crown Estate revenues, is good news for the Highlands. As offshore wind and wave power develops, these communities will start to get some direct benefit.
From my political perspective, its frustrating that this welcome initiative has come from the Coalition and not as a result of Scottish Labour pushing the idea, as I argued in my blog last month. Ed Milliband and the shadow team are doing well at Westminster but we seem to be a policy & ideas free zone in Scotland at the moment. The sooner we get over the May elections, stop arguing about internal organisation, contracts and rulebooks, the better. We need to get back out there campaigning again.
