IN February of last year, like many other home owners, I took advantage of a Scottish Government energy-saving scheme designed to encourage me to install, or replace existing, house insulation and replace my eight-year-old gas boiler, all at the same time and for free. I wonder how many boilers were scrapped as a result of that initiative and how/where they were scrapped? Were they dealt with in Scotland or the UK? Or were they loaded on to containers and shipped abroad to be dumped on a foreign doorstep?

At present I am investigating the feasibility of installing a solar photovoltaic and battery storage system and, having read your report ("No more cash for solar panels without heat system upgrade", The Herald, August 15), if I wish to proceed, I require once more to replace my boiler – only 18 months old this time – with a renewable heating system. Again, how many such boilers will be scrapped, where and how?

While the Scottish Government is encouraging us to be sustainable, it is also encouraging us to be wasteful. What a way to run a country.

William S Cooper, Strathaven.

• ANOTHER spectacular shot in the foot by the misguided Patrick Harvie. Let’s stop people receiving financial assistance to instal solar panels unless they also replace their entire heating system. Result - people will stop installing solar panels.

Mr Harvie needs to remember the old adage, “when you want to eat an elephant, just take it in many small bites”. Installing solar panels is one small bite in decarbonising our homes, but no longer, thanks to Mr Harvie's extremist approach to everything.

Richard Hunter, Cupar.

We must boost solar panels

TO keep Scotland on track to achieve net zero, we need to increase solar PV deployment from today’s level of 0.5GW to 4-6GW by 2030.

More than 61,000 households in Scotland already have solar panels and it is vital that more are installed across the country on homes, businesses and public buildings to protect consumers from the high electricity prices the UK currently faces and tackle climate change.

However with 85% of Scotland’s electricity now decarbonised it is vital that finite public spending is focused where it can make the largest impact on cutting emissions. Heat makes up more than half of the energy used in Scotland and currently only 7% of the energy used to heat Scotland’s homes comes from renewables. Acting now to increase that figure is vital if we are to meet emissions targets and build a domestic low-carbon heat supply chain.

Morag Watson, Director of Policy at Scottish Renewables, Glasgow.

• IF heat pumps are the preferred economic and environmentally-friendly choice of our governance, why is the first action not a law to force all future new houses to be built with such a system? Such a law would have more impact than giving existing house owners a reasonable time to effect changes.

Further, if electricity charges are too high because they are linked to gas prices, why is this anomaly not removed? Such a change would ease some of the present inflation faster than small increases in the bank rate.

JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.

Read more: Why should we cave in to Patrick Harvie's blackmail?

Incompetence of Glasgow council

YOUR lead front page story today ("Rise in rat numbers blamed on LEZ ban for bin lorries", The Herald, August 16) really sums up the incompetence and greed of the SNP-controlled Glasgow Council.

It raced ahead implementing the LEZ zone, no doubt relishing the thought of all those lovely fines to come. However, it seems that in its speed to clobber those motorists driving older cars, which inevitably included a disproportionate number of drivers on lower incomes, it in its haste did not check its own fleet of vehicles, in particular the HGVs used to collect rubbish. This has resulted in more than a third of the fleet being unable to operate in the LEZ zone, resulting in reduced capacity of vehicles able to keep the city centre clean and thus creating the perfect environment for rat infestation.

It has been previously well reported that the state of cleanliness in Glasgow city centre is a disgrace and this is now being exacerbated by a council which is clearly unfit for purpose.

I suppose we will get the usual response of learning lessons and similar psychobabble and in the meantime these incompetents will continue drawing their allowances. It's pathetic.

James Martin, Bearsden.

What's behind car insurance hike?

AS my car insurance expires next month, I used a comparison website to check for quotes hoping to find something close to the current year’s cost. To my dismay, the lowest quote was for an amount 53% higher than at present despite no changes in my cover.

Whilst inflation will account for a small amount of that increase, what is the justification for all the rest? Is it because more and more people are driving without any car insurance and to cover their liability risk the insurance companies have decided to require us to pay for these people’s missing cover as well as our own? If so, how fair is that?

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

Tourism has become a monster

I CONCUR with Alistair Easton on short-term lets (Letters, August 15). There are far too many properties which are now short-term lets. Soon the central area will be just a dormitory ghetto.

Edinburgh has many hotels and traditional boarding houses for visitors. We require a living city inhabited by residents, working in the city, building communities. Especially in Edinburgh tourism has become an uncontrollable monster. For once all the councillors need to unite and reduce the short-term let problems, to which there are too many to list.

Jim Mackenzie, Edinburgh.

Oh no, not ewe again

THE book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there's nothing new under the sun.

One of the jokes voted best at the Edinburgh Fringe is "What does Kylie sing while counting sheep? I can't get ewe out of my head" (Alison Spittle).

About 75 years ago, with no anaesthetic and his drill working relentlessly on a decaying tooth, my dentist asked whether I had heard the song of the lonely sheep. "There'll never be another ewe," said he.

I was in no position to respond, but still don't find it funny.

David Miller, Milngavie.