The death of Margaret Thatcher drew many comments on the negative influences of her policies on the industrial wellbeing of this country.
A negative aspect which I did not hear aired was her impact on rural areas, specifically the sale of Government-owned forestry land.
Swathes of forestry, family silver, were sold off. Forests were not advertised for sale on the open market and sale prices were not made public due to "commercial confidentiality". Many large landowners increased the acreage of their estates without any public accountability. At the time, the then Forestry Commission had guidelines stating that land would not be sold in "socially fragile areas". This was not adhered to. It might surprise people to learn that, forests have continued to be sold off, albeit in an open manner. Our politicians are continuing the work of Margaret Thatcher and, however they try to justify it, it cannot be to the public benefit if our forests are sold off to private landowners.
Duncan Cameron,
Barracks Croft, Glenelg.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article