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HAPPY EASTER FROM ALL THE ULLAPOOL  NEWS TEAM.

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After last week’s news that the Post Office mobile unit will visit Ullapool from Dingwall for 4 hours only on a Monday morning, and listed Achiltibuie as an alternative –

how are we supposed to get there?

THIS WEEK’S LETTERS FOCUS ON THE POST OFFICE SITUATION FOR ULLAPOOL

Dear Eds,

The Post Office’ scandalous behaviour continues!

When the closure of our Argyle Street Post Office was first announced, I thought then that the Post Office overall management strategy was aimed at getting rid of as many small Post Office businesses as they could.

Ours was ably run by Margaret and her lovely friendly, efficient staff. It functioned as a mail centre, information service and community resource six days of the week. It was forcibly closed by Post Office management as being “not profitable enough”!!

Parletts took over the franchise, tried to run it for longer hours (another one of the Post Office managements spurious closure reasons) for a while. The mail centre was uprooted and relegated to a container at the rear of their shop.

The pandemic hit, opening hours declined and never recovered. Heather Parlett gave notice of resignation 22 months ago, and is now getting the blame for us being relegated to four hours a week Post Office services from a van. This paltry service is promoted as being wheelchair accessible!

Be honest, would you want to queue (in a wheel chair) in the driving rain and howling wind of a Monday morning? Or travel all the way out to Achiltibue at other times?

I read all the time about Highland Councillors and members of the Scottish Parliament expressing their concern over rural depopulation. Yet, in Ullapool, as elsewhere, decisions about services are imposed by people who have no idea of how our community functions.

One of the excuses for the Bank of Scotland closure was that we had five days a week Post Office services.

We, as a community – and that includes Lochbroom outliers like us folk in Elphin – need to plan a proper strategy to protest at and overcome these corporate impositions. The folk of Braes and our Community Council managed to see off that developer setting a good example of ways forward.

Can all our community organisations band together urgently please and form a co-operative working group to get the Post Office to listen? To give us all a forum to speak our minds?

Enough is enough!

Rosie Christmas

Dear Eds

I wholeheartedly agree with last weeks letter, from Sheila Didcock, regarding the Post Office’s complete disregard for the needs of our community.

I have nothing but praise for the work Heather and Hazel put in to keep the Post Office services running, despite being given inadequate support and equipment. And I agree that attempting to pass the blame for the slashing of our service is scandalous – something I would have thought the Post Office would be keen to avoid, given recent revelations.

I run a small independent business in the village. Everything I sell is handmade in Scotland, 90% is made very locally. Meaning my turnover stays within the local economy. It is a small, but important business. I have survived the challenges of Brexit, the pandemic and the financial crisis – at a time when small retail businesses are closing at an alarming rate. But now I am faced with yet another block. I chose to bank with the Cooperative Bank, as it is linked with the FSB, for ethical reasons, and because I could operate my business banking via the PO counter. I naively thought Ullapool would never lose its Post Office.

During the season I heavily rely on our PO. For banking, for change, for postage, for delivery quotes. I can visit the post office five or six times a week, often several times a day. In my nine years of trading, I have never been alone in the post office (be it on W. Argyle St, Shore St or Market St). There has always been someone in front or behind me, young, old, local or visitor. The service is always in demand. Escalating at Christmas – even with extended hours.

The laughable suggestion that we all pop along to ‘our alternative branch’ at Achiltibuie demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of our infrastructure and location. They obviously assume we all have hours of spare time…and cars…and personal snow ploughs in the winter… They forget there are also important members of our community that do not have internet access. For them the PO is a communication life line, now all but cut off.

The Post Office have obviously decided NOT to invest in our community and our future. A token offering of a satellite PO for a derisory four hours per week is insulting to us, and to those that have worked so hard to maintain a service.

Please can I echo Sheila’s call to ask that we unite to put pressure on the Post Office to act swiftly to restore a full time counter service, and to demand that they openly apologize for the stress and problems their lack of action over the past 22 months has – and will – cause.

I will be forwarding this letter to the Post Office and anyone that I think might help/act.

Sara Garnett.

Dear Eds,

Well said, Sheila Didcock. In her letter in last week’s UN she took issue with the post office’s decision to give Ullapool all of four hours a week post office service. Though they have also had the brilliant suggestion of dropping in to Achiltibuie post office as an alternative…

Sadly, a post office is just one of what is becoming a litany of what Ullapool now lacks. I’ve written here before about our lack of a dedicated bus service. One is dependent on the ferry and the other on school times/ holidays. And there’s no dentist now either. You can add to that – boarded-up shops, falling school rolls, lack of affordable housing.

The late Mary Catherine Mackenzie wrote me a list of shops and other businesses in Ullapool in 1936. Shops then were – 2 bakeries, 2 grocers, 1 licensed grocer, 2 draperies, 2 hardware shops, 1 paper shop, 2 general stores, 1 butcher, 1 sweetie shop and the Tweed Mill Warehouse. And, of course, a post office…

I never thought I’d ever talk about ‘the good old days’. But sadly Ullapool has gone backwards. We are an aging village. We need all our recently–lost facilities to retain the younger generation(s).

Are we destined to become like Japan where, according to a report on BBC2’s Politics Live last week, more adult nappies are now sold than baby ones?

Yours sincerely,

Joan Michael

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Corrieshalloch Gorge National Nature Reserve NTS – 150th anniversary of Sir John Fowler’s suspension bridge!

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the construction of the suspension bridge in 1874, by the Victorian engineer Sir John Fowler, and as it is also a Listed structure, each year we give it a thorough inspection and maintenance so as to keep it in top condition.
Thanks to the specialist engineers at Dinardo Partnership and Trac HLM, who spend a lot of their time working on lighthouses, they use their expertise to abseil off the bridge to inspect it and carry out any necessary repairs, as well as giving it a fresh lick of paint! This costs our charity around £15,000 each year, all income generated at Corrieshalloch Gorge goes directly back into the site which enables us to give this special bridge the care and attention it requires and provide a truly exhilarating experience for our visitors!
Find out more about our different membership options: https://shorturl.at/fgEMN Or come and talk to a member of our team on-site, we will be happy to tell you more about the benefits of becoming a member.
(Details about the anniversary celebrations will be announced soon)

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Seed Swap success, “Extra” moving on to Elphin!
After two incredibly successful weeks at Ullapool Library – with over fifty locally saved seed items recorded, and well over two hundred packets “swapped” – just in time for Easter, Ullapool Seed Swap Extra opens at Elphin Tea Rooms, on 27th March.
Our Extra Swap display has been thoroughly refreshed with new stock.
So, if you haven’t taken a look already, or if you have but feel there’s something seedy you are missing, do pay a visit to Elphin Tea Rooms.
Our Extra display will be there until at least 12th April.
As an “Extra extra” of course, you can have tea, coffee, home made cake or a really lovely lunch, enjoy the friendly ambience (all welcome) and the fantastic mountain views across the green bowl of the Elphin valley.
What does the “Sow by” date on a printed packet mean?
Someone raised a query about this in our visitors book at the Ullapool Library Swap display. They were concerned when they came to sow them by the “Sow by 2023” on the packets of tomato and cucumber seeds they had selected from our Swap. They wondered if this meant the seeds were no longer viable?
We can assure them that they are perfectly okay. Both tomato and cucumber seeds have a viable life of 5-7 years. (Amongst the longest shelf life of any vegetable, providing they are kept in a dry, cool, secure box, tin, drawer).
All the seed companies are required by law to place a limit of one to two years on published sowing dates. After the “Sow by” date has passed, they are not allowed to sell these seeds. So the printed sowing date only refers to this legal requirement, not at all to actual viability of any seed.
We do have a list of actual seed viability years on our Seed saving leaflet and also our Facebook page. As a general rule of thumb, remember parsnips and carrots lose their viability within one to two years, many annual flowers and herbs the same. Other seeds will be okay for 3-7 years, some will keep longer if frozen in a seed vault.
All the seeds we put out in the Swap are checked for seed life and, if necessary, for viability by the damp, dark sprouting tray method. Any that don’t sprout go into the compost.
The short “Sow by” shelf life means that if the seed companies carry on selling them and are found out, they will lose their seed production license. So they either scrap them or donate them to (lucky!) Seed Swaps like ours.
We can’t thank them enough for their generosity, especially this year when the amount of donated seeds has been truly amazing. So a big round of applause to Vital Seeds, Tamar Organics, Heritage Seed Library, Poyntzfield Herb Nursery, Kings Seeds, and the late lamented Seed Co-operative. Plus all you lovely folk who brought your own seeds along. THANK YOU!!
Our thanks also for their kindness and continued unswerving support to, Evelyn, Joanna and Ann at Ullapool Library – and to Jo and everyone at the stalwart Ullapool News.
Please feel free to contact us via our Facebook page, or email: ullapoolseedsavers@gmail.com

Rosie and Cathy

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New public toilets and motorhome waste disposal facilities have opened in Gairloch in the north-west Highlands.  The £200,000 project is designed to help the area cope with a major rise in tourism since the North Coast 500 route was created.  The Gairloch Area Development Trust has been working with Highland Council and Visit Scotland on the scheme.
The toilet block includes shower facilities, baby changing and has disabled access.

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