How longer must this precious church suffer Glasgow's neglect?

Twenty-five years on from Glasgow 1999, City of Architecture & Design, has the council now adopted the policy of "managed deterioration" so prevalent in many of Scotland’s historic buildings? If that 1999 accolade were an OBE or MBE there would be a rightful clamour for it to be handed back. The care of the city’s built heritage requires commitment and consistency, not just a series of superficial events.

Jim Thomson, Balfron (Alexander "Greek" Thomson’s native village).

Read more letters

• The NC500 has been a disaster for the Highlands
• Licensed trade has had to adapt to survive, but where is the help?

Government must help save our pubs

JOHN Gilligan, someone I was fortunate enough to deal with over many years, makes a heartfelt plea on behalf of Scotland's licensed trade (Letters, September 9) and describes how much the trade has developed and evolved to ensure its own survival.

Over the 30 years I worked in the licensed trade, firstly on a part-time basis then running and eventually owning my own pub, I witnessed the many changes and challenges that John refers to and agree that the licensed trade showed remarkable resilience many times as it fought for survival.. In the present day the trade, which in Scotland employs around 122,000 full-time and 107,000 part-time staff and generates revenues in excess of £6 billion, is facing a "perfect storm" of challenges including seemingly ever-rising cost pressures, labour shortages and of course a cost of living crisis which means less disposable income for customers to spend. These factors are allied to the punitive business rates levied on the licensed trade and 20% VAT charged on hospitality so I must agree with Alan's sentiment that "the real crime with governments is their constant failure to consider realistic support for pubs that could survive and contribute to the economy by paying lower rates and lower VAT".

As a member of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association I am aware of members all over the country who are fighting hard to keep their businesses afloat and to continue to keep staff employed and carry on serving the local community. I believe that a strong and successful licensed trade can make a positive contribution to Scotland's economic wellbeing by providing careers and employment, raising revenues and taxes and of course by making our cities, towns and villages vibrant and welcoming places, so if the Government is listening, please help save our pubs.

Billy Gold, Glasgow.

Swapping good trains for worse

IAN Harrison (Letters, September 10) adds to my worries over the future of Scotland’s internal long-distance trains when he suggests that cascaded Voyagers from England’s Midland Main Line might be dumped on us. Noisy, uncomfortable, cramped trains they most certainly are, with underfloor engines creating vibration throughout every carriage. Spot the difference between a Voyager and a thoroughly poxy ScotRail 170.

Where’s the progress in swapping good for worse? Why on earth should we travellers in Scotland be fobbed off with the third-rate?

Instead of complaining about half-century-old High Speed Trains (HSTs), Mr Harrison might ask himself why it is that these trains have lasted, and continue to provide excellence of journey? One answer is that they were designed and built with available kit, from parts that had been proven in service. Thus they have successfully been adapted, rebuilt, re-engined, and brought forward for new life.

Why otherwise would ScotRail have acquired these trains from the former Great Western fleet of HSTs, and refurbished them at Wabtec, Kilmarnock? That refurbishment was carried out to a high standard, so evidently the very same ScotRail once considered its HST fleet to have a substantial life expectancy. What has suddenly occurred to change this?

These HSTs represent what precisely should have replaced loco-hauled real trains on Scotland's trunk routes when those fine trains became life-expired at the end of the 1980s. Instead we were patronised by two-car Sprinters superseding six-carriage trains. These sardine-can Sprinters - and to our shame and that of ScotRail, they still appear on scheduled long-distance services - have more than occasionally run with the number of standing passengers rivalling seated ones.

Mr Harrison might care to note that the word “madness” wasn’t employed by me, though consideration to scrap HSTs in favour of lesser breeds of trains, some types of which are outlined by Mr Harrison, comes gey near an accurate description.

Gordon Casely, Crathes.

Should we do away with the two-tier mail system? (Image: PA)

Lose two-tier mail system

RE Jean Christie's letter (September 11): I too stay in areas served by the same sorting office and am baffled at times why I can send a letter first-class some 500 miles south from St Rollox to Devon to my daughter and sometimes it is there next day and sometimes it takes up to a week. Local mail is similar, sometimes next day, sometimes next week, By the same token, mail to me is abysmal. I have two subscription magazines I get every week. One should arrive on a Wednesday and one on a Thursday; invariably they arrive two to six days later or on occasion not at all, and that’s before I count the mail which goes AWOL and I have to get re-sent.

Instead of hiking up prices of first-class stamps which will probably shift a lot of mail to second class and probably worsen time taken for it to arrive, perhaps they should focus on why there are so many inconsistencies in the service and dare I suggest revert to a one-class service, which I would have thought may stop the need for two parallel routes for mail through the system?

Douglas Jardine, Bishopbriggs.