Tunnel vision mars Rest and be Thankful plan

Apparently the plans are to upgrade the Old Military Road to two lanes to take the existing traffic during construction, although there would still be traffic lights at the hairpin bends which would remain single-lane. There will also be a continuous catch pit above the shelter which will have its own access road for machines to clear out the debris. So I make that three and a half to four roads it is planning to build, because the roof of the avalanche shelter will need to be the equivalent of a road strong enough to withstand the immense pressures exerted by tonnes of rock, mud and water moving full bore downhill. And it doesn’t say where it will put the debris so expensively gathered from the catch pit. How it can say the shelter idea is the best solution escapes me. It is developing all the hallmarks of yet another Transport Scotland fiasco.

The obvious solution, a graceful viaduct, would allow the 100,000 tonnes of glacial debris still poised high above to flow unhindered, harmlessly forming natural alluvial fans at the foot of the slope. The views from the viaduct of the mountains would be stupendous and it would quickly achieve iconic status as one of Scotland’s great travel experiences.

The Rest and be Thankful is one of our finest mountain passes. It is the national park’s premier gateway to Argyll and it deserves much better.

John Urquhart, Chair, The Friends of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs, Helensburgh.

Time to devolve the ferries

ROY Pederson (Letters, June 16) makes an excellent suggestion. The Scottish Government should assist the Mull community to develop a business case for making the Oban-Craignure ferry service community-owned and operated.

This could be a template for a number of other locations. It would show an open-mindedness currently lacking, and innovative thinking that is much talked about but less often seen in Government actions. It would be a logical development of the principles behind the Scottish Land Fund.

As Mr Pederson states, there are several other ferry providers seemingly operating more efficiently than the Calmac behemoth. A community operator for one of the major routes is a logical addition to the mix. Time for some internal devolution.

Sandy Slater, Stirling.

• I AM no financial wizard, as anyone who knows me will agree, so could someone please explain how the Scottish Government can fine Calmac and accrue any benefit from that action ("Vote on ferry crisis payouts fund ‘was blocked by SNP’", The Herald, June 16)? The money for the fine is only going to leave the account of one government business account to that of another, in the process losing money with the costs of the actual legal action.

Could this be the first case of robbing Peter to pay Peter?

George Dale, Beith.

Read more: We need to put ferries network into the hands of the local communities

Can we really believe the media?

NEIL Mackay raises several valid points in his article on the rise of conspiracists ("Blame the politicians for the rise in violent conspiracists", The Herald, June 15). He does however avoid pointing the finger at the role that the mainstream media plays in the affair.

Nobody would deny that the web is full of completely convincing videos of people wearing “skin masks” pretending to be such luminaries as Presidents Macron and Biden at official functions or Nasa astronauts supposedly on the International Space Station who are obviously supported by wires to give the pretence of being in zero gravity. My point is that these videos are just as “real” as those we see on mainstream media.

My cast-iron belief in what is presented as truth by the BBC disappeared on Tuesday, September 11, 2001 when it announced the collapse of a third tower, WTC7, almost half an hour before it actually happened when the building was visible still standing in the distance behind the reporter. There are online videos from the likes of American Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (not a bunch of unqualified conspiracists) who completely debunk the official narrative on how all three WTC buildings collapsed. One can find similar feeds that state that it was impossible for Timothy McVeigh to have blown up the Oklahoma Federal Building in 1995. There is also video of retired US General Wesley Clark relaying how he was unofficially shown a list of seven countries the US intended to invade prior to the events taking place. It's all very convincing but doesn’t fit with the official narrative we have been spoon-fed. Weapons of mass destruction; remember them?

We are expected to unconditionally accept what we read in the papers and see on TV as the truth when sometimes later we find it was of questionable veracity. When the mainstream media accords more air-time and importance to the sexual dalliances of a TV presenter than to the murder of a three-year-old Palestinian child shot in the head by an Israeli soldier or riots on the streets of France is it any wonder that conspiracy theories abound?

David J Crawford, Glasgow?

Wheel of change

I ENJOY trying to solve as many words in the daily Herald Word Wheel, abiding by the rules.

I was amused to see the word “ciao” included in the solution on Friday (June 16. It may well be that is often used as a greeting or departure, but its roots lie surely in a foreign language i.e., Venetian from Italy.

Joyce Irving, Uddingston.

Bring back Lobey Dosser

I TOO, as a Deputy Sheriff of Carlton Creek with a certificate to prove it, would agree with R Russell Smith (Letters, June 16) that the statue of Lobey Dosser and El Fideldo says more about Glasgow humour than the (OK, iconic) Duke of Wellington and his cone.

I would love to see Lobey Dosser’s adventures reprinted, bringing him to a younger generation. Too much to hope for?

Mary Duncan, East Kilbride.