The big issues in Torrance right now...

The big issues in Torrance right now are crime, development and politics.

With only 1,839 souls, however, those issues take on a different light in the village of Torrance, Scotland, than they do for the 144,000 residents of Torrance, Calif.

Fascinated at having an American counterpart, the villagers decided it might be interesting to learn a wee bit about California’s Torrance.

Unfortunately, things move a little slowly around Torrance, the village. Their letter of greetings, mailed on Dec. 16, 1989, arrived here two weeks ago.

The differences between the two Torrances have caused much comment on both sides of the Atlantic.

“Yes, I’d say it’s a little different,” Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert said. “They worry about cutting back the brambles on Torrance Road . . . and keeping cows off the footpaths. We don’t seem to have that problem.”

Chris Corbett, secretary of the Torrance (Scotland) Community Council, said in a telephone interview Friday that the two Torrances have little in common beyond the name.

Even that came from different sources. California’s Torrance took its name 78 years ago from its founder, Jared Sidney Torrance. Scotland’s Torrance gained its name centuries ago from its location.

“In the original Gaelic it was called An Torrens, literally meaning the village at the side of the hill,” Corbett said. “The spelling just changed over the years. Some of the older people here still call it The Torrance, as opposed to just Torrance.”

The physical appearance of the two Torrances could not be more different, he said.

“We have little in the way of industry. It’s mainly farming,” he said. “We have three public houses (pubs), a post office, two general stores, a garden store and a Chinese take-away restaurant. That’s about it. The rest is housing.”

Crime consists of perhaps a dozen “house breakings” each year and one or two “breaches of the peace” each week, mostly committed by one small band of carousing, drunken youths, Corbett said.

The youths have prompted villagers to lobby for more police officers to patrol the town. Their only bobby, Peter Wood, said in a telephone interview that he cannot devote much more than 40 hours each week to protecting the village.

The hot topic around town as election time approaches now is development; the villagers don’t want any. Torrance had its greatest growth spurt between the late 1700s and mid-1800s, when most of its older houses were built.

Laws forbidding construction within a specified greenbelt of land around the village prevent the village’s borders from expanding.

“It’s to stop us from joining up into other villages, to leave some open area, and to keep Torrance an island in the green hills,” Corbett said.

There are residents of California’s Torrance who wish they had thought of that.