Finance Minister to Meet With Gretna Landmark Campaigners
Written by admin on August 4, 2013
The man in charge of Scotland’s purse strings, Scotland’s Finance Minister John Swinney, will meet local campaigners this week to discuss a landmark of international significance at Gretna.
The Star of Caledonia is a shimmering sculpture that is said to be put at the border crossing at Gretna and represent Scotland’s own Angel of the North.
Mr Swinney will meet the campaigners from the Gretna Landmark Trust at his Edinburgh office on Tuesday 6th August, after an intervention by south of Scotland MSP Joan McAlpine.
In a letter to Ms McAlpine, Mr Swinney, Scotland’s Finance Minister said that he’s looking forward to learning more about the project and the plans for its future development.
“I am The Star of Caledonia is an imaginative project and it will bring positive benefits to the south west of Scotland,” the Finance Minister said.
The Education Minister Michael Russell has also expressed his enthusiasm for the project which was first conceived as a way to regenerate Dumfries and Galloway in the wake of the foot and mouth disaster ten years ago.
Mr Russell intends to meet with the Trust at a later date to discuss how it might work in partnership with the Glasgow Science Centre on an education project.
One of the main inspirations for the work came from the ”father of modern physics” – James Clerk Maxwell – who was brought up in Dumfriesshire and developed the theory of the electro-magnetic field.
