ONCE again we hear by the back door, so to speak, that an SNP policy has been quietly abandoned. The high-speed train link between Glasgow and Edinburgh, announced with due fanfare by Nicola Sturgeon in 2012, is not to happen because “a cross-border route must be identified first” ("SNP ditches plan for inter-cities high-speed bullet train", The Herald, January 15). Very strange that the then infrastructure minister, N Sturgeon, did not appreciate that pretty obvious factor in 2012.

Of course the real story here is not the fact that the SNP had not done its homework before making an announcement but that Scotland's transport structure is inextricably linked to that of the UK as a whole. An independent Scotland would operate under exactly the same constraints, the only difference being that instead of agreeing a mutually acceptable route with our fellow citizens in England, we would be negotiating with a foreign country which would have no interest whatsoever in our economic wellbeing. There would be nothing mutual about it.

Independence would come at a very high economic price.

Carole Ford,

132 Terregles Avenue, Glasgow.