Creed Park

Scotland's First Minister, Jack McConnell, was in Lewis today on a variety of engagements. He attended the Highlands & Islands Convention, hosted by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar [Western Isles Council]. Read more here.

Apart from that, he also opened the new recycling centre at the Creed Park Industrial Estate, a mile or so outside the town. This was the scene of the Bin Fight at the Creed Park Corral, back in April 2006.
The Council were giving away 3 compost bins to each household in the island. Saturday, April 27th, was going to be the day. It was also the day of the Stornoway Half Marathon. All householders in the island had the same idea, which was to queue on the A859 to get the 3 bins that they were entitled to. Traffic stretched for miles, in one of the worst traffic jams ever experienced anywhere in the Western Isles. Police turned people away, for those people only to tell them where to go: "I'm entitled to my bins!" Needless to say, they ran out of bins, and it was quite a stramash out there.

Jack was also pleased to announce that a decision on the Lewis Windfarm at Eishken (note: that's a different one from the big one in the north of the island) would be taken sooner rather than later. I'm not pleased about that, as nobody is going to benefit from that in Lewis itself, apart from a few misguided souls in the district of Kinloch who think they'll get a nice payout. The only payout worthy of any description will be the owner of the Eishken Estate, Philip Oppenheimer. Total population of Eishken: less than 10. No, not missing any zeroes out there. All 36 villages were cleared in the 1820 for sheep and latterly deer.