Members of the Scottish Parliament's petitions committee went to Glencoe yesterday to hear villagers' concerns over National Trust plans for the area.

Locals fear the National Trust for Scotland proposals will destroy the traditional way of life and could even desecrate the site of the infamous massacre.

At issue is the NTS's overall plans for Glencoe, but these have come to be symbolised by the proposal to build a #2m visitor centre at Inverrigan, where many believe the Massacre of Glencoe began in February 1692. Clan societies throughout the world have sent messages of outrage at the plan.

Mr Alastair MacDonald, of the Glencoe Action Group, who presented the petition to the committee, said the NTS's woodland regeneration plans would mean that most of Glencoe would be taken out of agriculture and turned into uninhabited scrub woodlands.

In addition, he said the plans would ruin views of the glen; he condemned the secrecy which he said had surrounded the proposals and the lack of local consultation; and he objected to the siting of the visitor centre at Inverrigan where his ancestors had been murdered 308 years ago.

Trust chairman Professor Roger Wheater told the committee that the NTS recognised that Glencoe was an internationally important site for many people, locals and visitors alike.

''It is for this very reason that the property and locality are under the microscope at this time and the Trust takes the petition, and the accusations contained therein, very seriously indeed,'' he said.

Professor Wheater said it was vital that the NTS relocated the visitor centre to a new building better able to cope with the 150,000 visitors a year, three times the capacity of the present centre.

He said the NTS received more complaints about the standard of facilities at Glencoe than at all other properties put together.

The NTS was confident that the new centre would not threaten the site of the massacre.

He said the NTS had taken all reasonable steps to ascertain that the site of the new centre did not contain any significant archaeological remains, or impinge on any site of the massacre.

On the woodland project, Professor Wheater said it would apply to only 17% of the 14,000 acres the NTS owned in Glencoe.

Much of the work would be natural regeneration, he said.

''This will result in a slow, gradual and varied landscape change, which will not hinder the clear views of the mountains, but will encourage wildlife in a manageable and sustainable way.''

The petitions committee will meet on October 24 to consider each side's views and decide on further action.