A Teenage bank worker swindled his bosses out of more than £6,600.  Brian Taylor, 18, embezzled the cash while working for the Clydesdale Bank in Inverurie and Kintore between April 7 and September 19 last year.  He had originally been accused of taking almost £8000 and initially denied the charge.  When the case was due to go to trial, the young adult admitted an amended charge at Aberdeen Sheriff Court reducing the sum to £6,655.  Sentence was deferred for reports.

£11 million worth of road improvements have been identified by transport bosses.  Spending plans include spending nearly £1 million on cycle routes into and around Aberdeen that include £500,000 on cycle links between Inverurie, Kintore and Blackburn.  There are also plans to spend £155,000 on two new dial-a-bus vehicles for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.  The proposals will go to the NESTRANS board for approval on Friday.

Revised bus timetables for Stagecoach services passing through Kintore will take effect over the next few weeks.  Timetable changes for the following services will occur:

Route 220 - 24th April 2006  (Aberdeen - Blackburn - Kintore - Kemnay - Alford)
Route 221 - 24th April 2006  (Inverurie - Kintore - Kemnay)
Route 307 -   8th May 2006   (Aberdeen - Aberdeen Airport - Blackburn - Kintore - Inverurie)

Revised timetables available from Stagecoach website at www.stagecoachbus.com.

A petition from Kintore resdents was handed over to Aberdeenshire Council protesting about ‘’eyesore flats'’ in the heart of the village.  The 700-signature document was handed in by local butcher Alistair Neish. He said the petition reflected widespread local feeling about the Langstane Housing Association development, which critics have labelled ‘’a massive henhouse'’.

‘’The general opinion is such a towering and modern design should never have been given planning permission,'’ he said.  Kintore Community Council has also lodged a letter with the local authority, highlighting criticism and claiming the decision to approve the flats had ‘’damaged the credibility of the planning process in general'’. 

Langstane Housing Association has pointed to an urgent need for such accommodation locally and said it hoped the project would grow on local residents.

Further tests on the swan discovered with the H5N1 virus has shown that the swan is not native to Scotland.  It is believed that the swan may have died when migrating back to its summer breeding grounds from Germany and had simply washed up on Scottish shores. 

 Although badly decomposed, DNA tests have shown that the bird was is migratory whooper swan and not a resident mute swan from the area.  This has lead to the speculation that the bird caught the disease in Germany, where more than 80 swans have died. 

Wild bird surveillance in Scotland will however still continue on to ascertain whether other species of birds are carrying the virus. Producers within the 1,000sq mile wild bird risk area, will still have to keep flocks housed for at least another 30 days.  Despite a large number of tests carried out since, no other birds apart from the swan had tested positive for H5N1.