wilsywilsy

Thought there was plenty grit and effort on display on Saturday but the quality with the ball was again really poor. On another day the Arabs run out comfortable winners - they wasted a lot of good chances and Ridgers made a few decent saves.

Disappointing to waste another gift goal and not sneak a win. A points a point though and every one of them is important regardless of how they are secured. Still 18 to play for and with Morton and Ayr both struggling to get any rhythm going too, theres still lots of room to escape the play offs yet.

On 3/22/2024 at 6:01 PM, Stephen Malkmus said:

The most relevant bias being displayed here is cognitive bias from people who understand that climate change is happening, but believe that an absolutely miniscule risk to themselves is worth scuppering this project over. 

The largest recorded wildfire in UK history occurred 26 miles west of Inverness just last year. That's a fire that we should be concerned about.

This is virtue signalling and greenwashing to try and wish away some understandable concerns. Maybe the clubs expert buddies could have helped them front run the concerns and mitigate them as part of their shoestring budget planning application.

On 3/22/2024 at 7:05 PM, DoofersDad said:

You may not have realised that sadly a man died in a house fire in Dingwall last month. 

Sorry to hear that - I did not know.

7 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

There are zero recorded instances of local residents in the vicinity of a BESS facility being injured by the facility catching fire or exploding.

Even accounting for the massive number of houses relative to BESS facilities, it's still riskier to simply live in a house.

This is sample bias.

55 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Mains gas though? And don’t get me started on cars and lorries, mobile bombs laden with explosive fuel! And then we have chemical factories, oil refineries, nuclear power plants and so on, which all obtained planning permission. Risk is everywhere you look.

Of course it is. But it doesn't mean its wrong, or surprising, when a bunch of folk stand up and say "here, I don't really like this new risk..... so what are you going to do about mitigating it?"

"chemical factories, oil refineries, nuclear power plants" don't get planning permission on protected green space in the middle of houses (well the ones that haven't burnt down due to all the statistical fire risks).

24 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

The only relevant comparison is that living in a house is statistically more dangerous than living close to a battery farm.

Totally agree that ILI's application was clearly done on the cheap, however.

This is false equivelance. Is that statistically plausible when there's probably more houses in Dingwall (apparently they have some) than there are BESS installations around the world?

On 3/17/2024 at 8:11 AM, DoofersDad said:

I should add here that I have maybe been a little unfair in my earlier criticism of the club with regard to the weaknesses in the application.  ILI and the prospective operator are the experts in this area and are the ones who should have the experience to get it right and to anticipate likely barriers to approval.  But given the risk to the club of the project not going ahead, the club clearly has a responsibility to make sure the application is watertight and they have failed in that.

Absolutely. IMHO they were recklessly casual about it going into the council meeting last year (was it November?) with 4 open statutory objections unaddressed. This was at the some time as they were mewling in the media about how a planning rejection would be an existential threat to the club. If it was a sh1t or bust situation, there is no way you would do that  (unless you were an entitled arrogant idiot).

16 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

On the safety point: fire services in the UK attend 22,000 house fires in an average year. Should we stop building houses? Obviously not, because the societal benefit outweighs the negligible risk. Even for the Melbourne BESS you cite, which is an extremely rare incident, nobody was injured, as was the case at the only recorded BESS fire in the UK in Liverpool. 

To be fair to the NIMBYs, building houses is a weak comparison to use - houses aren't packed to the rafters with explosive chemical compounds (well, mine isn't..... although I dunno what my youngest keeps under that bed of his).

2 hours ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

Another perspective:

"The WHO conservatively projects 250,000 additional yearly deaths by the 2030s due to climate change impacts"

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health

This image shows the number of BESS faciilities granted planning permission in the UK in the last five years. One event in Liverpool several years ago, where no one was harmed, is not an adequate basis for forming a judgment on the safety of these facilities. Nor is the list in the Word document which generally relates to very small scale incidents in countries where the facilities are less regulated than in the UK.

Assuming it's actually fully used (the national grid skip rates for batteries have been grim) and remains optimal (batteries generally don't), the ICT bahh’rhee farm will allegedly save 20,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

At its very best it will save 0.006% of the UKs emission. That is about 0.00005% of global emissions. We just need to build 2 million of these to save the world. The green wet dream.

Interesting link in the doc above to that EPRI wiki of BESS failures. Looks like there has been more than a few issues. First page shows a fire at a BESS in Australia a few months ago which was using Tesla batteries that Morrison said was planned for this site.

The UK HSE considers the monster batteries in BESS as the same as a lithium battery you might put in your TV remote, which is hilarious. How bad must the regulations be in the countries you say are "less regulated than the UK"?

25 minutes ago, Satan said:

if you're in public office, for the greater good or personal gain you are putting yourself and whatever irrational decisions you make up for debate.

Absolutely true. Scrutiny comes with the territory of public office. I think the club and media being so direct and barbed about it opened the door to those intimidation claims. 

And I agree today’s statement was less bad. Certainly a big step forward from yesterday’s cry-bully junk from Gardiner. 

15 minutes ago, Satan said:

A lot would disagree with claims that it was intimidation, i bet some of these councillors love a good email, especially when it's to blow smoke up their arses.

Surely public officials with online  contact details should expect some correspondence from time to time...someone has to let them know how great they are ffs.

Or are we all snowflakes now?

Ach it’s subjective, isn’t it. Unfortunately the club personalised it with regular barbed digs at Oldham and MacLennan in the media. I don’t think it’s a leap to think they in particular found it all a bit intimidating. 

I just knew this thread wouldn’t disappoint tonight. Lots of hand wringing about the council and the ICT characters behind this planning application - some very justified and some utterly wild takes too. Great read nonetheless. 

Hat tip to @DoofersDad for consistently being a voice of reason.

1 hour ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

HSE, SEPA etc. would all regulate the site through their own regimes. The BESS would have to comply with the standards below. The officer presenting the application stated that he could attach a condition requiring a fire response plan to be submitted. The idea that BESS aren't subject to regulation and controls is fiction.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think anyone has suggested the components and installation would not meet BS guidelines. The concerns we have heard over the last few days were about operational failures and if the site layout and design was prepared to mitigate those possibilities...... it seems not.

8 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Why would the council be pursuing their own BESS projects whilst at the same time citing safety concerns about them as a reason to refuse our one? Surely there isn’t one rule for them….

Fair point. I could be wrong but I understood that it was just an idea/concept at this stage. From what I recall the prospective location was the old Torvean Quarry, which is in the development plan as open for industrial use. By the time the council ever get round to moving something forward, ScotGov might have some BESS legislation/guidelines in place. Dunno.

10 minutes ago, Stephen Malkmus said:

Absolute scaremongering nonsense. Would you be saying the same if they lived near a petrol station?

I'm not sure I would go that far and say it's scaremongering. There were some reasonable concerns highlighted today about fire safety and the environment that was all under lined by the lack of legislation that could offer any comfort. At least petrol stations have tight regulations and controls from HSE and other regulatory bodies that planners and councils can lean in to.

6 minutes ago, lightlamp2 said:

Yet lying about being intimidated and threats similar to what MP’s faced is okay to say. Despite 5 other councillors stating they’ve received the same emails and they weren’t intimidating at all. Why wasn’t that ruled out of order? What relevance does that have to the application?

How do you know they were lying or how they felt when reading the messages they received? They mentioned the emails because they were correspondence specific to this planning application. Macpherson was trying to break into some warped whataboutery mode and for his own good was put back in his box.

1 hour ago, lightlamp2 said:

Duncan Macpherson attended the meeting and was most likely in favour. He was about to point out how much of a hypocrite Oldham was. But then got shut down as apparently you can't speak your mind as an elected official. But lying and saying you've been intimidated by people supporting a battery farm is perfectly fine.

Macpherson is a cartoon-councillor. Nobody takes him seriously. He was desperate to parrot what Ross Morrison said about Oldham, which was a really weak comparison anyway. He was rightly shut down for havering irrelevant crap.

35 minutes ago, IBM said:

I am still hoping for fifth place when you look at the goal difference. 

I'm onboard with this. Saturday is obviously a massive opportunity to jump up the table but with the home form being so abject and two tough away fixtures right after, I would settle for going into April with the points gap to 4th/5th being the same as today. That should make the run in interesting....... if this team can (finally) peak at the right time.

1 hour ago, STFU said:

The paranoia continues.

I've seen nothing to say Highland Council are against Battery Storage or that they are against other people building them.  The main sticking point with the ILI/ICTFC one is that they want to locate it on protected green space in an area not zoned for industrial use.

One other thing, it literally says 75 in the bottom right of the slide.

I presume this relates to some idea the council previously had about proposing one at these at Torvean quary?

Speaking of slides...... this might have already been posted and I missed it. My normally good for nothing Wilsy Jnr showed me last night that Lochardil council have shared all their slides on social media here https://drive.google.com/file/d/17IM85misgFxNm8Uun14ns2Y_GnmxrZ6C/view?fbclid=IwAR0mlocg8ln9rl4l66w1T1X3VfMAySTe6Zz2kNQRg2wRRzzbqNmKR3SfPBc

At first reading they seem to make some reasonable points. Very surprised they left the socio-economic benefits unchallenged. Will be interesting to see if any of this cuts through to the underlying loss of green space debate tomorrow.

On 3/11/2024 at 3:19 PM, STFU said:

That second email that you think is blowing you off is the best response from any councillor I've seen yet.

He takes the time to explain why the decision is being reviewed, that the original decision has not been overturned, and the process that will now take place.  He also explains the dangers of following the course of action the club has encouraged.

Agree with that. I think everyone is jumping to the conclusion that this has gone to a full council vote because loads of the councillors are against it (as well as Bezos and the illuminati). That could be the case but I don't think its a given. As Michael Cameron says a decision on something that is clearly a bit divisive needs to stand up to scrutiny.

As for the chat about party lines - nae idea. I reckon it's impossible to read. You could refer to manifesto pointers in either direction for this one.

On 3/10/2024 at 4:06 PM, DoofersDad said:

The Community Councils need to provide some evidence to support their statement that the NFCC guidance makes it "irrefutably clear" that the site "has multiple unresolvable safety issues".

Considering the public objections around fire safety, the discussions in the last planning meeting about fire safety, now the communuty councils saying "would ya look at all these fire safety guidance issues", it is odd that the club didn't publish or attach to the planning application whatever they have in writing from Scottish Fire and Rescue to try and debunk any of that. Unless the letter is a nothingburger.

Instead, the template email the club sent everyone said "Fire risk etc is not a material planning consideration."

1 hour ago, Yngwie said:

There is only one valid point which is the one the planning committee used in its recommendation to reject, the rest of it is irrelevance and misdirection. Sorry Wilsy, I know you and your pals put a lot of effort into it but it’s pretty feeble and does not stand up to scrutiny.

Deary me . That is quite a wild leap you are making here Mr Morrison. 

If you are not 100% with us, you are against us. Or something like that. 

Add Wilsy to the Councillor Oldham and Jeff Bezos ICT vendetta conspiracy. 

10 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

I said at the meeting that I didn’t think it was a good idea to antagonise the Council in the run up to this vote. 

Exactly. Many of us said the same on here earlier this year. Rather than try and win hearts and minds with the merits of the proposal they have gone with a victim mentality and personalised their criticism of anyone who doesn’t agree with them. Over and over and over.

At the meeting on Wednesday Morrison responded to your question by saying something along the lines of “what did you expect me to do?”. The answer should have been “be a f*ckin adult about it”. 

8 hours ago, Jack Waddington said:

it reminds them that they *have* broken a law and the club will happily gear up and go all the way.

Out of interest, what law has been broken? 

28 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Shall we have a game of spot the difference?

Read these extracts from the presentation against the project, then read Wilsywilsy’s posts on this thread. Uncanny!

“Contrary to multiple statements made… the land is not owned by Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club.

“In addition, the applicant emphasises that the ICT Community Trust is a main beneficiary, but fails to explain how ‘the financial benefits accrued from the development will be managed through the ICTFC Community Development Trust’.

“Moreover, public statements from the applicant suggest that their primary concern is addressing the football club's debts.”

 

Ehh? Are you trying to imply a statement of fact based on a quote from the planning application sounding similar to another statement of fact around the same quote must be from the same person?

It sounds like the team who knocked this together are above my station. Maybe they got there inspiration from reading this thread?