UKH

So one of the royals was trollied out yesterday to open the new deep water harbour in Aberdeen.... originally proposed and approved as a necessary development to service North Sea oil decommissioning and the offshore renewable sector the Harbour are now proudly welcoming super sized cruise ships off the back of it....the ones that a lot of European cities are starting to ban cos they're too big and polluting but up here are seen as a great business opportunity. So expect 60 shiploads of tourists to be disgorged across the Scottish Highlands next year on coach trips run by one of our local Tory bigwigs to add to the queue of motorhomes already clogging up the roads.The Scottish government are obviously delighted as they are so desperate to prove we have an independent functional economy ....so half a billion has been spent  pouring several million cubic metres of concrete into the sea as part of our inspirational trajectory towards "net zero" and a "green" economy.

In other parts of rural Scotland watch out for the swathes of new industrialisation creating renewable energy storage/ production and the massive expansion of conifer planting to offset rich folk's carbon consumption....

I will be selling my own carbon offset vouchers as I plan to cut my future emissions by not doing all the polluting things I might have done.

There's a rock off a rock off a tiny Western island that has my name on it... visitors won't be welcome 😉

I’m not a fan of cruise ships, horrible big polluting things.  The thought of going on one is hideous.

However, I think you might be having a bit of an over- reaction to 60 ships coming in.

I live in Orkney, this year we will have had 230.  Some are enormous and they increase our island’s population by more than a quarter on the days they are in port.  This is intrusive and has caused a fair bit of controversy in our community.  Those who have businesses who can make a good living out of them are delighted, as are the harbour authority who take in ££££££ in berthing fees.  Some folk like seeing the street busy others resent it.

Aberdeen is much, much bigger, so they won’t be anywhere near as obvious.  Most will likely head off in buses to Balmoral, then back to the boat in time for dinner.  You might get some heading into town/Old Aberdeen, maybe Fittie but they are well spread out over the area so not likely to impact local life so much.  

On recent visits to Aberdeen (which is my home town btw), I’ve been struck by how dead and down at heel it seems.  I’d not be adverse to attracting some visitors in.

The new harbour is already there, might as well use it.

BTW did you not hear that Rockall was on the cruise liners next hit list for an adventurous itinerary (joking….)

I can’t actually believe I’ve written a post defending cruise liners, as I really don’t like them.  Just trying to put things into perspective I think.

The current Scottish Government is a totally incompetent shit show - no doubt about that. But how much of this can be blamed on them? Is this more of a local planning matter?

To add to this: some towns in Arctic have a quadrupling of population when these monstrosities arrive. Some business owners are happy, some aren’t (becasue they all go back to the boat to eat). It’s horrid. 

It's similar in Venice, the discussion around introducing a tourist tax for cruise ship visitors (there has been one for hotel guests for a long time) has been very divisive. According to my brother the latest meeting at which it was discussed was reported in the local press as making "the British House of Commons look like a chess match" which made me both laugh and concerned about how we are viewed. I think the result was one is going to be introduced during peak season. 

The proposed tax in Venice seems risibly low to me: about 5 quid a day. But that's up to the Venetians/Italians, I guess.

Back to the original subject: does anybody expect the passengers berthing at Aberdeen to actually want to visit Aberdeen itself? Or is the city just a convenient place from which to run bus tours?

They berth up here as well (Cromarty firth). I’ll take a guess they aren’t doing open bus tours of invergordon.

Ha!

As a PS: The current British House of Commons is a disgrace; no question. However, since there are regular fist fights and brawls in the Italian parliament, and since the ruling party there is the right-wing nut-jobs the 'Brothers of Italy', I don't think we should be unduly worried about any comparisons ...

Yes, is a compromise due to different vested interests but €120million a year is probably significant for a city of 50k. As you imply it depends on how attractive the destination is, I quite like the idea of £5 a day charge to visit the Lakes but would struggle to argue that is risibly low.

Agreed, but I'd rather their press felt they could  take the piss out of a different country. 

A separate discussion, I guess. However, many visitors to the Lakes will have paid a great deal of money per day just to be there - and an additional £5 would be only the cost of a pint.

More critical questions - for me, anyway - would be: who exactly is collecting the money (I mean, which authority)?; and how is the collected money to be used?

Back to Venice: it's a world-famous, and world-class, honeypot; its infrastructure is crumbling; and the city is sinking. Tourists on cruise ships will have paid big money just to be there; an additional 5 quid per day would be lost in the noise to such people.

Free public transport? I've been in the Sud Tirol for a couple of weeks and the van hasn't moved. Actually here the discussion is around how the tourist tax hasn't reduced numbers and do they need to introduce quotas/limits

As an example, I'd be very happy with an outcome like that.

I’d guess most will head inland to castles and distilleries but some will visit the city.  If things are laid on for them, passengers will go - despite its reputation for being grey and dour Aberdeen does have some charm and areas of historic interest.  

The crew certainly will head into the town. Kirkwall charity shops and the Pounstretcher type shops do a roaring trade when the cruise ships are in town, crews are largely from places like the Philippines not well paid by UK standards and have an eye for a bargain.

Id have thought Aberdeen would be somewhere that ships would restock fresh food as well.  The infrastructure is already there as oil industry supply vessels have been doing just that for the past 50 years.

Thanks. All that makes sense.

This isn’t definitive - just what I’d surmise what’s likely to happen from a) living somewhere which is already a cruise ship destination and b) knowing Aberdeen and the area around it well from having grown up and worked there for years.

They aren’t going to be anywhere near as intrusive in a city of about 200k people as they are on a small island, or in an Artic community as mentioned by a previous poster.

I just hope the City Council spend the harbour dues wisely.

The port is and independent trust, with all profits invested back into the business, and as such the city does not get harbour dues.

Hmmm, so who is behind the Trust.  Ian Wood?

I think your brother´s local press is slightly out of touch concerning the way in which chess matches have evolved in the post-Covid digital era. Yesterday´s Final of the World Speed Chess championships between Carlsen and Nakamura was, live online and with brilliantly competent commentators, one of the most nail bitingly brutal exchanges I´ve ever witnessed, on a par with Borg/McEnroe, Federer/Djokovic or Ovett/Coe. Carlsen won in the final Bullet section (each player has 1 minute for the entire game with an additional +1 second per move made) 15-14, with an incredible double rook sacrifice. Unbelievable stuff for us normal punters.

Sorry @all, seems to be a glitch here - this was a reply to a completely different thread. Please ignore!

Well the city council have just done a recent round of early retirement/voluntary severances and still have significant debts to offset so we’ll see. I totally agree what you are saying about Aberdeen, it really feels like a ghost town these days but from what I can gather you might be right, guests from the ships are packed off to Royal Deeside and surrounds so other than harbour fees I don’t know how much businesses in the area will directly benefit, I can’t see them walking into Torry (!) for instance for a buttery ; )

Stocking up on rowies? I do when in the area anyway.

You seem to be complaining about everything. Perhaps you should stand for a place in the snp.

Probably Dunrobin Castle too. 

Absolutely not... I'm genuinely interested to hear people's reactions as I think too many major developments go ahead without any real debate as to their validity....

I personally think it's insane that we are investing in oil based tourism and sad that the profits filter up to a small elite. A lot of the country including Torry badly need investment to generate a more sustainable local economy. I also think we are burying our heads in the sand with regard to climate change and collapse of ecosystems.

But that's just my personal take and everyone is entitled to theirs... that's the nature of democracy.

So no, not complaining, just genuinely worried what the future holds for our kids.