| Modern Scot - 30/07/2026 · Issue 008 |
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 | | Policy and Government · 29 July 2026 Open Letter: Scotland Should Not Be Left Behind on Local News Local news publishers from across Scotland are calling on the Scottish Government to introduce a Scottish Local News Fund, warning that Scotland risks being left behind while other parts of the UK invest in the future of local journalism. By… |
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| | Community · 29 July 2026 Edinburgh’s Official Statistical Portrait Leaves Crime And Homelessness Outside The Frame The council’s annual overview records Michelin restaurants, airport passengers and festival attendances. It omits crime entirely and leaves the capital’s legal failures on homelessness in separate committee papers. Edinburgh’s latest official statistical portrait can tell residents that the city has… |
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| | Highland · 29 July 2026 Land Control Leads To £13.85m Highland Housing Award Without Open Competition Highland Council says competitive tendering for 52 homes at Rosskeen would duplicate work and threaten funding deadlines. Its planning reports and procurement notice, however, give conflicting accounts of who owned the land. KEY HIGHLIGHTS: No Competition: Public tax money… |
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| | City of Edinburgh · 29 July 2026 Scottish Company Ooni Takes On Global Kitchen Appliance Giants The Edinburgh-headquartered business began with a portable pizza oven and a £17,000 crowdfunding campaign. Its latest product, developed as Ooni attempts to expand beyond outdoor cooking, will compete directly with some of the oldest names in domestic kitchen equipment. A… |
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| | Transport · 29 July 2026 £1.52m Trial Will Test Whether Electric Aircraft Can Serve Highland And Island Routes Project SEAN is a three-month government-funded test of electric flying from Inverness Airport. It will examine whether a small battery-powered aircraft, charging equipment and existing airports could eventually support passenger, freight and medical flights across northern Scotland. A small electric… |
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| | Policy and Government · 27 July 2026 The Children Who Leave Mull For School — And The Local Answer Scotland Has Not Yet Tested Almost one in five secondary-age pupils across Mull, Iona and Ulva attend school on the mainland. Many live in an Oban hostel from Monday to Friday. The system can be traced to the closure of Bunessan’s secondary department in 1968,… |
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| | Energy · 27 July 2026 Montrose Skills Academy Aims To Turn Offshore Wind Growth Into Local Careers A £1.25 million public investment will help convert part of Montrose Port’s restored Customs House into a specialist training centre, bringing offshore-wind education closer to the turbines, vessels and maintenance teams already operating from the harbour. A new Offshore Skills… |
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| | Community · 27 July 2026 Aberdeenshire Restaurant Weeks Return For Third Year As Local Hospitality Campaign Continues To Grow A council-backed initiative encouraging people to dine locally will return this November after attracting a record number of participating businesses last year and helping introduce diners to new cafés, restaurants and hotels across Aberdeenshire. Aberdeenshire Restaurant Weeks will take place… |
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| | Energy · 27 July 2026 North Sea Kittiwake Platform Enters Final Phase After 36 Years A long-serving North Sea production hub is moving towards shutdown and decommissioning, opening another chapter in the industrial transition facing Aberdeen as ageing oil infrastructure reaches the end of its working life. The Kittiwake platform, which has produced and processed… |
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| | Economy · 27 July 2026 Glasgow-Based Tech Consultancy Named Among UK’s Best Workplaces For Women A technology consultancy that chose Glasgow for its first European headquarters has been recognised as one of the UK's Best Workplaces for Women, highlighting the city's growing role in attracting international professional services businesses. Invisors, a Workday consulting firm with… |
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| | Environment · 27 July 2026 What Will Happen To The Animals Caught In The Cairngorms Wildfire? Some will have escaped. Others could not. As firefighters continue working across Glenmore and Abernethy, the true cost to wildlife remains hidden beneath smoke, ash and ground that is still too dangerous to enter. The Cairngorms wildfire began on 15… |
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| | Environment · 27 July 2026 Kinghorn Faces Permanent Bathing Warning As Pollution Source Remains Unresolved Kinghorn Harbour Beach is carrying a fourth consecutive Poor classification, while bacterial pollution in the burn crossing the sand has prompted a warning expected to remain throughout the 2026 bathing season. Scottish Water told MSPs last year that it did… |
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| | Infrastructure · 25 July 2026 North Ayrshire Council Faces Transparency Questions Over £1.17m Data-Centre Deal North Ayrshire Council has committed more than £1.17 million of public money to a six-year data-centre contract awarded directly to one supplier. DataVita operates its own Scottish facility but can also act as an intermediary for global cloud platforms under… |
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| | Energy · 25 July 2026 Ofgem Plans Tighter Controls On Dividends And Debt At Scotland’s Energy Networks Britain’s energy regulator is consulting on stronger financial controls for the monopoly companies operating Scotland’s electricity networks, including proposed restrictions on shareholder distributions, debt, changes to protected reserves and transfers of assets within corporate groups. Ofgem says the measures are… |
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| | Policy and Government · 25 July 2026 Scottish Local Government External Debt Budgeted To Rise By £3.2 Billion Scotland’s councils and other local-authority bodies have budgeted for combined external debt to reach almost £28.8 billion during 2026–27, as borrowing remains the principal source of capital finance for schools, housing, roads and other public infrastructure. The figure is a… |
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| | Environment · 25 July 2026 Cairngorms Wildfire Declared Major Incident As Nethy Bridge Is Evacuated An entire Highland village has been evacuated after strengthening winds drove a long-running wildfire towards Nethy Bridge, turning an operation that had appeared to be making progress into a major incident. Smoke has travelled across the north-east as far as… |
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| | Environment · 24 July 2026 Livingston Recycling Firm Secures £3.5 Million Public Grant For Plastics Technology ReVentas will expand its Livingston pilot plant as it works towards commercial deployment of a solvent-based process for difficult plastic waste, although the location of future plants and the number of Scottish jobs have not been disclosed. A Livingston recycling… |
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| | Environment · 24 July 2026 Balloch Castle Ash Shortlisted For UK Tree Of The Year After Surviving Storms, Disease And Crowds The veteran ash on the southern shore of Loch Lomond has endured hurricane-force winds, a suspected lightning strike, ash dieback and generations of visitors. Its nomination also draws attention to the uncertain future facing Scotland’s remaining mature ash trees. A… |
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| | Community · 24 July 2026 Tributes Paid After Councillor Paul Henke Dies Aged 76 The Forth and Endrick councillor, former Royal Navy bomb-disposal officer and author had served the Balfron community for years before his election to Stirling Council in 2022. Tributes have been paid to Stirling councillor Paul Henke, who has died aged… |
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| | Community · 24 July 2026 £27.8 Million Larkhall Leisure Centre Business Case Sent For City Deal Approval South Lanarkshire Council has submitted the Full Business Case for Larkhall’s replacement leisure centre after the project’s budget more than doubled and residents successfully pressed for indoor sports space to be restored to the design. The proposed £27.82 million replacement… |
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| | Community · 24 July 2026 Spanish Galleon Replica to Open its Decks at Ayr Harbour The Galeón Andalucía will spend 11 days in Ayr this August, offering visitors a close view of the ships that helped create the first enduring trade routes between Europe, the Americas and Asia. The vessel also carries a history less… |
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| | Policy and Government · 24 July 2026 Shetland Sets Terms For Developers But New Charter Relies On Voluntary Cooperation Shetland Islands Council has approved a development charter intended to secure greater local benefit from major investment, including renewable energy projects. It sets expectations on ownership, environmental protection, housing, community benefit and local supply chains, but it does not alter… |
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| | Infrastructure · 24 July 2026 Scotland’s Digital Identity System Runs on Amazon Cloud ScotAccount now has more than 768,000 registered accounts and processes biometric images during some identity checks. The Scottish Government says the information remains in UK-based Amazon Web Services regions and that photographs are deleted after verification, but it has no… |
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| | Heritage and Arts · 24 July 2026 Scotland’s Endangered Architecture Left Unmonitored For Two Years As Official At-Risk Register Remains Frozen Historic Environment Scotland froze the official Buildings at Risk Register in September 2024 after a review found that it was incomplete and inconsistently maintained. The consultants did not recommend that it should simply be closed and warned against leaving Scotland… |
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| | Infrastructure · 24 July 2026 Scotland’s Public-Sector AI Map Is Stored on Microsoft Cloud Outside Scotland The Scottish Government has awarded a Finnish software company a £1 million contract to expand the country’s central AI-governance platform. Saidot says its service is hosted through Microsoft Azure in Ireland, its contract remains unpublished and the public register still… |
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| | Tea With Gunns · 26 July 2026 The TARDIS Is Now Scotland’s Most Reliable Form Of Public Transport On Thursday evening, the King and Queen arrived in Glasgow by TARDIS. This was encouraging. For years, those of us living in the Highlands have been told that distance is a difficult problem. It affects buses, trains, broadband engineers, hospital… |
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