Newtonmore’s Waltzing Waters to close at end of August 2011

If you’ve ever meant to catch the Waltzing Waters show at Newtonmore, but never quite got around to it, then you had better get a move on, as the nearest (and only UK) venue will soon be the Isle of Wight.

Unfortunately for me, it’s not in a corner of the country I visit much, so I’ve only seen the show a few times over the years, but it is well worth the effort.

As of this post, you have only have two weeks left to catch the show, as its 20 year run comes to an end together with the end of August 2011, after which the venue is to be razed to the ground and probably turned into a supermarket.

I don’t know how much truth there is in the Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) claim that it has nothing to do with the loss, and it seems like yet another case of an NPA not doing anything to conserve an area – and conservation takes many form, not just protecting flora and fauna. It always seems to me that if something does not contribute to an NPA’s coffers, then it disappears, or is eventually replaced by something that does (eg wild camping near Loch Lomond).

It also makes the Scottish Government’s demand for a 50% increase in tourist revenue by 2015 look a bit hollow, since there seems to no mention of any campaign or attempt to retain the show or venue – nor of any refusal by the owner to participate in such a think

A tourist attraction which has been running in Newtonmore in Badenoch and Strathspey for about 20 years is to close at the end of August.

Waltzing Waters puts on shows where jets of water lit by coloured lights move to music.

The Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA) has called in plans to redevelop the site.

A Co-Operative supermarket and five homes have been proposed. CNPA planners have been asked to approve the plans.

In a report, park officers said Waltzing Waters had attracted significant numbers of tourists to Newtonmore over the past two decades.

They said closing down the attraction had been the owners’ personal choice and its loss to the area could not be attributed to the proposed development.

via BBC News – Newtonmore’s Waltzing Waters to close.

View Larger Map

Admission & Hours:

Open 7 days a week including Public Holidays
from early February through mid December.
(winter visitors please call to confirm exact dates)

40 minute shows on the hour every hour:

Daytime Shows
10 am, 11 am, 12 noon, 1 pm, 2 pm, 3 pm, 4 pm

Additional Summer Evening Shows
8:30 pm; July & August only
(call to confirm exact cut-off dates)

Adult £4.25 Child £2.50 Concession £3.75

Coaches welcome! – Special Group Rate!

According to the web site:

Around 1930, German inventor Otto Przystawik invented the first musical fountains. In 1964 his son, Gunter moved to the U.S. and continued in his father’s footsteps developing even more sophisticated designs. Today, grandson Michael Przystawik is company president of Waltzing Waters, Inc., the world’s premier manufacturer of musical fountain spectaculars.

In 1979, the newly re-routed A9 motorway bypassed some of the tourist-dependent villages in the Scottish Highlands. Businessman Alex Donald knew something really new and different was required to draw tourists off the motorway into the village of Newtonmore.

While on holiday in Florida, he witnessed the Waltzing Waters. Stunned by its beauty and emotional appeal, he knew he found the perfect solution.

In 1990, Mr. Donald brought the show to Newtonmore and the Waltzing Waters quickly became one of the most popular attractions in the Scottish Highlands.

Post closure

After the attraction had closed, the web site was altered to contain the following message:

After entertaining over 1.6 million visitors, the Waltzing Waters has celebrated it’s (sic) final season in the Scottish Higlands (sic). Concluding performances were seen 26 August, 2011. Shows continue as usual at our Isle of Wight location.

After twenty-two seasons, owner Alex Donald decided to enter semi-retirement on the Isle of Wight, where he continues to oversee the Waltzing Waters in Ryde.

New St Kilda visitor centre could be on the Western Isles

Last time I mentioned the St Kilda visitor centre was almost two years ago – War declared over St Kilda – I was given a row for basing my comments on the media reports at the time, rather than the biased online presentation of one of the interested parties.

It looks as if there’s still no proper resolution, and the war I referred to is still underway, with all three contenders still beavering away on their plans, and presumably all thinking they are right.

Perhaps if I refrain from commenting about any one in particular, no-one will shout at me this time, and tell me I’m wrong.

On the other hand, maybe I should upset them all, and suggest that the lure of an imaginary pot of gold for whoever manages to land the centre is affecting their thinking, and they’d be better resolving their differences and getting a visitor centre in place post-haste, and not waste yet more time arguing (and poking other people in the eye) – time when they could be collection tourist gold, which (if it exists) they are all letting slip through their fingers every day the visitor centre is not in place to empty the tourists’ wallets.

Hopefully the visitors will not end up lost and confused, as it looks as if the reality is set to be one official and two unofficial visitor centres, and just ignore them all if they feel let down.

Plans to build a major St Kilda Centre in the Western Isles are being outlined at an open day.

The programme include visits to the proposed site in Uig on Lewis as well as showings of rare archive film dating back as far as 1908.

…Towering cliffs at Manergsta, Uig are similar to the scenery on St Kilda and were a pivotal factor in the site being formally selected for the official visitor centre.

The base needs to be built on one of the main islands of the Hebrides due to the difficulties in crossing the 60 miles sea gap to St Kilda and limitations on visitor numbers.

But hopes of a tourist bonanza has two other Hebridean communities – Leverburgh and North Uist – drawing up their own plans to host rival visitor interpretation centres about St Kilda.

via New St Kilda visitor centre could be on the Western Isles | Highlands & Islands | STV News.

Moat Brae House prospectus launched

Moat Brae © Copyright Darrin Antrobus

When I mentioned Moat Brae for the first time, way back in 2008 – Tourism opportunity missed, it was really to have a dig at the “50% by 2015% demand by the Scottish Government, which was their subtle request for the tourism industry to increase its turnover by 50% by 2015. The stick was there, but no apparent carrot to help meet the call.

Moat Brae, with its connection to Peter Pan and author JM Barrie seemed to be an ideal tourist trap (or magnet), but had been left to the vandals, with a quick search showing reports of damage dating back to 2003, and no real help to save the house, which might even have been looking at demolition if the damage and decay continued.

Since then, there has been a number of stories that suggested good news and the start of work to save and restore the house, but these always turn out not be the start of real work on the structure, but of plans.

When the name of Moat Brae bubbled up to the top of my news feeds this week, the wording suggested that work was about to start:

BBC News – Dumfries Peter Pan house project launched

But it turns out that its just another planning announcement and prospectus launch, and reveals that the trust looking after the house has yet to complete its purchase:

The Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust is currently raising funds for the upgrade of the building and has secured Joanna Lumley as a patron for its plans.

She said: “I am so thrilled and proud to be here to launch these exciting plans for the future of Moat Brae House and garden.

“There is such wonderful potential to create a fantastic National Centre for Children’s Literature.

“I want to help raise the profile of this admirable project so that Peter Pan fans from all over the world can support this wonderful restoration.”

The house and garden were in private ownership between 1823 and 1914.

It subsequently became a nursing home which shut in 1997 and fell into disrepair.

A local housing association then bought the property and planned to turn it into a residential development.

However, a campaign was launched to stop those proposals and ownership of the building was transferred to the PPMBT for £1 in 2010 with the goal of creating an “attraction of international significance”.

The group is now launching its prospectus with its vision for the historic site which Barrie described as an “enchanted land” which was “certainly the genesis” of Peter Pan.

The trust’s first goal is to raise £750,000 to fund the agreed final purchase price of the building and undertake urgent repair works.

While I like to think I am a realist, and understand how long these projects can take, I hadn’t thought I’d begin to wonder if I would still be writing this Blog by the time the house was opened.

Nor am I criticising the trust – hats off to the members for perseverance.

However, I think those (at the Beeb) responsible for writing the leader for the articles might want to keep the headline a bit closer to reality.

Update

Just after the prospectus was launched, Historic Scotland granted the project £250,000 towards emergency repairs to secure the property from further decay, but this still leaves it short of the £615,000 being sought to complete the these repairs alone.

Urgent repairs funding has been awarded to the house which inspired JM Barrie to write Peter Pan after playing in its gardens as a child.

A grant of £250,000 is being given by Historic Scotland to help restore the Moat Brae building in Dumfries.

…
Development director Cathy Agnew said the funds would help in its goal of raising £615,000 before the end of the year to carry out emergency work.

She said it would let the trust take the “first steps to deliver this project and save Moat Brae”.

BBC News – Dumfries Peter Pan house project secures repairs funds

Another update

Busy time down in Dumfries, and following the above stories there was yet another, as Joanna Lumley – already noted as a patron of the Moat Brae House project – unveiled a statue of Peter Pan at the entrance to the town:

The Peter Pan statue was provided by the action group, the People’s Project, which is working to improve the appearance and reputation of Dumfries.

Ms Lumley said she was amazed at the work which had gone into the wood-carving.

“I absolutely love it – I am so impressed that it is all made out of one enormous spruce tree trunk,” she said.

“It is absolutely enchanting and it is standing outside the garden centre so everybody who is driving past on the road can see it.”

BBC News – Joanna Lumley unveils Dumfries Peter Pan statue

Yet another update

There must be a regular traffic jam in Dumfries these days, as I just spotted news that the people from the Buildings at Risk register have been there for a look as well, and updated the entry for Moat Brae House:

Moat Brae House, SCT Ref No 2215, Dumfries and Galloway

Rothesay initiatives announced

I’ve already had the pleasure of mentioning the funding awarded to my favourite haunt of Rothesay (and to a few other places badly in need of help to restore and regenerate them, after the near death-blow the package holiday deals of the 1970′s dealt to them) – see Scottish towns – and Parkhead Cross – secure significant restoration grants and Rothesay buildings to benefit from £500,000 for examples and a more detailed inclusion of relevant links.

On June 3, 2011, Argyll and Bute Council announced the launch of the Rothesay Townscape Heritage Initiative:

Published Date: 3 Jun 2011 – 16:14

June 11th will see the launch of the Rothesay Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI). Over the next 5 years the project aims to improve the entrance into Bute by enhancing the built fabric of the town with particular focus around Guildford Square.It has already secured £2.6 million in funding from Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland, LEADER and Argyll and Bute Council via the CHORD programme.

In celebration of this, an exhibition is being held in the Pavilion cafe from 1-4pm on the day. All are welcome and it will be possible to speak to the project team about the aims and objectives of the heritage-led regeneration scheme.

Over the next 4-5 years, the project seeks to secure the good repair of five priority buildings and to reinstate a building back on the Guildford Square gap site by offering grant to property owners. Grant aid will also be available to help enhance and reinstate traditional shopfronts on Albert Place and Guildford Square and to make more modest repairs to historic buildings throughout the THI area.

This also announced the involvement of RCAHMS with the conservation aspects of the works:

On June 11th, representatives from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) will support the conservation objectives of the THI by displaying their work on the character areas of Bute. Lynn Kilpatrick, Urban Survey Projects Manager at RCAHMS will give a presentation on the results of their work looking at the town, and will be available to answer questions and direct people to the results via the organisations’ online database Canmore.

Rothesay Townscape Heritage Initiative

Date:  11 Jun 2011 – 12:30 – 16:00

Summary: If you live in the Rothesay THI area or are interested in conserving Rothesay’s heritage for future generation, come along to our information event

Venue: Pavilion cafe, Rothesay

Area: Bute and Cowal

Contact: lorna.pearce@argyll-bute.gov.uk

If you live in the Rothesay Townscape Heritage area or are interested in conserving Rothesay’s heritage for future generations, come along to the Townscape Heritage Initiative information event.

Where: Pavilion cafe, Rothesay

When: Saturday 11th June

Times: 12.30 pm – presentation by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland in the Lesser Hall

1pm to 4pm – Townscape Heritage Initiative and Glasgow School of Art displays in the cafe.

For more information, please see our news release from 3rd June.

Rothesay THI makes grants available to secure the good repair of historic buildings in and around Rothesay’s Guildford Square. Grants will be available for three schemes:

• Priority Building Repair Grant,
• Small Building Repair Grant,
• Shopfront Repair Grant

Guildford Square

One of the key areas that seems to have been identified as a beneficiary of the work is Guildford Square, seen below receiving some emergency remedial work in April 2010, when the old, empty, derelict shops in the gap were demolished and removed, such was their level of decay. Hopefully, the new works and funding will allow the town’s heritage to be saved rather than scrapped, as much has been lost over the recent decade or two.

Guildford Square works 2010 © Zak

Catch some more views of Rothesay here: Zak’s Photo Galleries at pbase.com

With luck, this will become a valuable ‘Before and After” archive of the works referred to, and become a reference which can be used to judge their effectiveness.

Driver information published ahead of M74 extension opening

A new website for motorists has been launched three weeks before the opening of the new M74 extension in Glasgow.

The site – M74 Completion | Transport Scotland – features maps and traffic tips about the new section of motorway which is scheduled to open on 28 June.

Drivers are being urged to familiarise themselves with the new arrangements.

The five-mile extension, which cost £657m, links the end of the existing M74 at Carmyle with the M8 to the south west of the Kingston Bridge.

Infrastructure Secretary Alex Neil said: “When the M74 completion scheme opens to traffic in three weeks time, eight months ahead of schedule, it will bring real improvements for drivers.

New arrangements

“As with the opening of any new road, it is important that drivers are informed of any changes the new motorway could make to their journeys.

via BBC News – Driver information push ahead of M74 extension opening.

Giant hole of Rubislaw Quarry suggested as diving centre

It’s funny how you can spend years near something famous, yet have no idea it is there.

Only a few metres from various North Sea oil and gas offices I used to frequent lies one of the largest man-made holes in Europe. Closed in the 1971. what was once Rubislaw Quarry is now a 140+ metre deep(120 metre wide) pool, pond, loch, or lake, depending on your preferred description. I found out about it around five years ago, but had no idea it would turn out to be almost literally in the same Rubislaw Drive I used to head for. You can hide a lot behind a fence and a bit of greenery.

A team of divers recently surveyed its depths, venturing down to 105 metres – not too surprisingly, they found some rusting quarry equipment.

The divers suggested the former quarry could be used as a diving centre, and the new owners – who bought the site in the summer of 2010 – have indicated that they would consider such a proposal.

The price appears to be undisclosed, so we only know that offers over £30,000 were invited, with the agents saying they were ‘inundated’ with enquiries for the site, which had not been sold for 150 years.

The old quarry is credited as the source of Aberdeen’s name of the Granite City.

BBC News – Rubislaw Quarry in Aberdeen could become diving centre

Mad plan for floating village and road on the Clyde

Correct me if I am wrong, but even after the hugely successful Glasgow Garden Festival of 1988 closed its doors, the promised developments that we were supposed to see on the vacated land took not years, but decades to materialise, and the land lay derelict and barren for most of that time. At one point, even the once popular Bell’s Bridge was closed, and fencing barred any attempt to use it.

In light of this, what is in the minds of those proposing and promoting a £30 million floating leisure village in the Canting Basin which once formed the water feature within the festival?

So far, I’ve seen four stories about this project, and the alarming aspect is that they appear to start out by describing it in terms such as “Glasgow is set to become…” (as if it is a done deal), move into a more accurate description of “proposals”, and then finish up with references to “If this (planning permission) is granted, and private finance for the deal can be found”.

Talk about DoubleSpeak. Planning permission and finance not even in place, yet the media is speaking as if the development is practically underway.

The village is supposed to lie astride a floating U-shaped road that would cross the basin and contain a mix of office buildings, studio flats, and town houses complete with private moorings.

It also comes with the standard collection of buzzwords to make it socially acceptable:

The firm claims that up to 450 jobs could be created in transforming Canting Basin into a “spectacular floating community” with “shops, offices, houses, restaurants, a marina and a roof-top concert arena”.

The developers have even suggested a that if planning permission and private finance was in place, work could begin in 2012, and be completed by 2015.

The proposal has been designed by a Glasgow based firm of architects in conjunction with another firm of London architects which specialises in water based projects – and seems to have the backing of Scottish Enterprise, which has already nominated a preferred bidder for the project.

In the news

The four media links I spotted can be found here:

Floating village at Canting Basin, River Clyde: plans for marina, shops & restaurants

BBC News – Floating village plan unveiled for River Clyde

Scottish Enterprise Media Centre – Glasgow to build world’s first floating leisure village

A touch of Dubai glamour for Clyde – Herald Scotland | News | Home News

As you can see from the titles, they already seem to have largelydecided this is happening, even though they report no planning permission or finance yet in place.

I guess I get what I deserve, as I have been complaining elsewhere about the lack of Scottish awards for major contracts, starting with the mess of the Holyrood fiasco a few years ago, through the Museum of Transport (not a fiasco, but not a Scottish architect), a landmark to mark the Scottish English boundary, and even the dump due to be built at Dounreay to hold waste from the decommissioning process. They’ve all been outsourced.

In the past

While I’d dearly love to see something as imaginative as a floating village on the Clyde appear and succeed, the past record of all such things is that they fail to appear, or if they do, are a pale imitation of their original proposal.

Worse still, they go the way of the Anderson Centre which once existed (and that is an accurate description) only a few metres away, which never worked, never gained popularity and was deserted most of the time, even though it was on the edge of Glasgow City centre. It just became more and more run down, those who had taken up residence didn’t like it and moved out, leaving the place derelict for years. It just ran down and down, became a dive for down and outs, addicts, and ‘interesting’ ladies, and was eventually demolished to make way for something less interesting, but functional.

I wish I could get paid to come up with ideas like this though – without having to also deliver the final build – I could be rich.

More likely I’ll injure myself as I split my sides laughing at the thought of a ‘roof-top concert arena’ being thought viable in Scotland – if the proposers had half a brain between them, not only would it make them dangerous, it would have had that proposal worded to suggest a glass roofed venue that offered views of the surrounding area and the river, and could be used year round, not only a few days.

Green and car free

Another amusing phrase that can be found in the Scottish Enterprise document is:

The plans for a green, car-free environment, which could have its recycled refuse collected by barge, will accommodate shops, a hotel, restaurants and an 80 berth marina with a unique yacht club concept which would be open to the public. There are also plans for a further 150 berths for the residents and occupiers of the development and for visitors by boat.

I rather doubt anyone that can afford to be berthing a boat there, and either living or working there (not as service staff) will not have at least one car, or more, and while the area might be created ‘car-free’, I doubt that means the residents and visitors won’t be abandoning their cars in the surrounding area.

Scottish climate

I wonder if they have considered the Scottish climate?

Even with climate change, it has been known to be wet enough to destroy the best planned building, and the idea of permanently damp floating houses seems doomed without costly maintenance over the years, becoming increasingly expensive to maintain as time goes on.

I’d dearly love one of Scotland’s art deco houses to call my own, but having looked at a few, can understand how they are a serious commitment for the owners, with recurring maintenance costs to keep their flat roofs and structures waterproof, or to lose the period character of the house, but save a small fortune by having the flat roof replaced with an ordinary pitched and tiled version.

If the development goes ahead, I’d advise any buyers to look at the build spec, and see what the projected life of the floating building is intended to be.

Yet another National Park farce rises in the Cairngorms

I no longer bother to hide my thoughts on National Parks – National parks – probably just bureaucratic empire building – and it seems that almost every story about them which surfaces in the media does nothing to convince that I am misguided in these thoughts.

The latest fiasco seems to have popped up in the Cairngorms National Park, where the authority appears to be following its pal down in Loch Lomond, and waving through housing developments, an action which has resulted in local groups being formed to oppose these plans:

BBC News – Legal challenge to Cairngorms national park local plan

The Cairngorms Campaign, which is based in Aberdeenshire, along with the Scottish Campaign for National Parks and Badenoch and Strathspey Conservation Group have jointly lodged the appeal at the Court of Session, and opposes plans for a new community at An Camas Mor, near Aviemore, together with schemes proposed for Grantown-on-Spey and Kingussie.

The Rothiemurchus Estate project would see 1,500 homes, and business and community facilities built in phases, close to Coylumbridge, and the The CNPA (Cairngorms National Park Authority) said it would be one of the “biggest developments in a generation”.

I can only echo the comment made by Spokesman Bill McDermott who said: “The park authority has been acting as the developers’ friend. It should be a conservation agency not a development agency.”

This is exactly the same conclusion I came to a few years ago, when it struck me that the Loch Lomond National Park Authority was doing much the same, and instead of acting as conservation authority, and hitting the news headlines back then as a group that defaulted to a position of opposing development, appeared to be one that was making the news by being criticised for allowing development to advance through the park.

Now, it just seem to hit the headlines when it introduces more rules and regulations, and which strike me as more favourable to its own developments than they are to the aim of promoting conservation.

I feel sure Tom Weir is looking down on this apparently useless organisation that has managed to impose itself on the land he once freely enjoyed, and is shaking his head – maybe even saying “I told you so”, as one episode of Weir’s Way included a debate between Tom and his fellow walkers from the area, and they did not come out in universal accord with what was then only the proposal to create a national park around Loch Lomond.

A cynic might be forgiven for thinking the various National Park Authorities had lost sight of the word ‘Park’ in their title, and see only the word ‘Authority’, and are too busy creating a world around themselves to justify that, and have lost sight of the more important word ‘Park’.

Save Otago Lane

On the basis that ‘Better Late Than Never’ applies, I’ve just come across the Save Otago Lane! campaign and story.

Sadly, like the examples of the Pollok Park fiasco and the closure of Paddy’s Market, to name but two, the Otago Lane story looks set to unfold as yet another case of Glasgow City Council riding roughshod over the wishes of the people affected, ignoring representations, and parachuting something ‘nice, shiny, and clean’ in order to wipe out the untidy and undesirable locals.

It’s a reputation I try to avoid associating with Glasgow City Council, as it is usually expressed to me by people with an axe to grind, or who have some sort of long history of problems with the council, and griping about it, and its members (and there we could start on the recent media coverage of certain former senior council members who, it seems, were not strangers to drink and drugs – it seems you don’t have to kick Glasgow Council, you have to force yourself not to) . But, as time goes on and the apparent zeal with which the council seems to ignore locals and try to force through these projects make it hard not to form a negative opinion, even if trying not to.

Otago Lane lies next to the River Kelvin, and is described as being unique in historical, economic and artistic terms, and developers are seeking to build more than 140 flats plus several commercial units there, but some 2,000 written objections have been sent to planning officials, according to the Save Otago Lane Campaign.

The proposed development is set in one of Glasgow’s only Bohemian quarters, and it is said, would have repercussions not only for the area, but for Glasgow and Scotland at large.

Campaigners have received support from a number of MSPs from different political parties, and thousands of people have signed an online petition against the plans, and further details can be found on their web site, where a number of MSPs’ statements have been presented.

Not surprisingly, the developers, Otago Street Developments Ltd, claim that their plans are in keeping with both the principles and the spirit of the local conservation area and local plan.

Glasgow City Council said the proposed development would be considered by its planning applications committee “in due course”.

Otago Lane - Courtesy of the Save Otago Lane campaign

More images can be found at: Save Otago Lane! – Images

The group can also be found on Facebook Save our Lane

And created an online petition Help save Otago Lane, Glasgow Petition

A large collection of related external links can also be found here Save Otago Lane! – External Links

I wish I’d spotted this months ago, when it first came into the public forum, but I always seem to ‘step back’ from searching around the various news feeds just at the wrong time, as it can be a time-consuming pastime, and often yields little reward. Looks as if I should may be start again, but try and find a better way to scan it more effectively. That said, it may be there is not easy way to do it. One site I used to really enjoy referring to disappeared a few years ago, and I later discovered the owner had given up for the very reason that he reckoned collecting more and more news items to review had eventually given him more work and stress than his job, and contributed to the heart attack that had knocked him offline, and I stopped doing the same shortly after that warning, when  I realised how many hours I was spending doing just the same every week

On the other hand, I still hate discovering things like the above have been going on for months, and I didn’t have the slightest clue they were there.

Reality could awaken old wave power technology

Either my opponents are getting tired, or have just decided I am some sort of nut (took them long enough), but I seem to be collecting less flak as time goes on and I continue to peddle my pet theory that wind power was little more than a handy cash cow in the early day of renewables. Unlike wave or tidal power systems, all the prospective wind power developer had to do was hijack some nice land where the numbers could be stacked to show potential, and a fairly standard box of wind turbine parts could be despatched and assembled to merit payment of a handy subsidy, more commonly referred to as Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC), or RO in Scotland.

This is generally misinterpreted as my suggesting that there was something untoward, or even fraudulent, in this process, but all I really intend to do by pointing out the blindingly obvious is that the easy route was taken, and the more difficult, but effective, road to wave or tidal power was bypassed. The subsidy was always available to any form of renewable power generation, the thing was that the only worthwhile system were usually wind based. The reason is obvious. By comparison, sea based renewable power means coping with a corrosive environment, and a liquid power source that carries much more energy than is gaseous partner, meaning that the hardware has to be much stronger to cope.

Back at the start of the wave and tidal power search, there was little research (and the bulk of the interest was in the speedy return from easily manufactured wind systems), and less incentive as a result. Now, the message that the land would have to be buried under wind turbines is beginning to get through, and wave/tidal schemes are beginning to look more attractive, especially since coal is still seen as dirty for various reasons, CCS (carbon capture and storage) is still to get going seriously, and the old radiophobia problem is still being loudly championed by those opposed to nuclear power.

The potential good news is that as time has passed, material science has progressed, we have better computer control systems, and the old ideas that were not developed in the early years of wave/tidal power may hold new promised if revisited and addressed using ‘new’ technology.

The BBC reported that ‘forgotten’ wave power technology from the 1980s was being examined and evolved to provide design inspiration for new systems currently being developed, and that there had been an assumption that because the technology hadn’t worked then, it wasn’t worthy of reconsideration. However, it seems that as is usually the case, making an assumption rather than a reasoned judgement was a bad idea, and that by revisiting the earlier ideas, but using modern material, an effective wave power generator could be built.

BBC News – Firm develops ‘forgotten’ wave power technology

It may be taking a while but, as time passes, it looks as if the ideas I’ve been posting in here about wave/tidal power over the past few years (while I also took a gentle, but firm, swipe at wind power) just might not be the ramblings of a deranged lunatic after all.

This particular project has another couple of years to run, so we’ll see how close I was, and if there’s anything useful to be had, or if any more ‘surprises’ join it.