I THOUGHT your editorial ("There are no winners in art school calamity", The Herald, July 23) worked hard to achieve an objective, balanced tone.

As your photographs show ("Mack fire: Residents vow to fight on for access to their own properties", The Herald, July 23), I lost my objectivity on Sunday, July 22 when Glasgow City Council prevented me from exercising my legitimate and understandable right to enter my home in Garnethill – the home the council "evacuated" me from six weeks ago, following the fire at the Glasgow School of Art.

I was yards from my home, on the wrong side of a security fence, staring at a group of demolition workers who were standing outside my front door. Apparently, it was perfectly safe for them to be inside the exclusion zone but not for me.

It is hard to be objective when the council’s response to our (the Garnethill Displaced Residents’ Group) legitimate and understandable request to be allowed into our homes is to threaten to have us arrested and to beef up the security around our properties. That’s the kind of response you expect from a totalitarian regime, not a local authority.

We are being treated like the enemy. It would have been more appropriate for Glasgow City Council’s chief executive to possibly offer a meeting to discuss the situation or to explain why we couldn’t go into our homes.

The council is hiding behind the public safety defence. Who can argue with an organisation that is only interested in protecting lives?

But how long does it take to make a building safe? It seems as though it’s sufficiently safe right now for security and council officers to move around inside the exclusion zone when they have to face down a peaceful protest.

We have been told by Alan Horn, director of development from the Glasgow School of Art, that not even one stone from the Mackintosh Building can be salvaged. It is a total loss. Why then is it being taken down literally one brick at a time? We have been told that this is the quickest and safest way to demolish the building.

But the process ignores needs of the local community and local businesses. It seems odd to me that it is possible to completely demolish and rebuild Queen Street Station without any impact on the passengers or services. Maybe that’s because it’s used by 20 million passengers a year and they’re spending £120m on the project.

It looks to us as though the council’s leadership has made a cynical calculation. There are 67 of us and the Glasgow School of Art is footing the bill for the demolition work so why should they stump up anything to speed up the process?

I challenge Susan Aitken, Leader of Glasgow City Council, to leave her office tonight wearing just the clothes she is standing up in, and taking just the possessions she has on her, and see if she can remain objective without setting foot in her home for six weeks or in fact for the foreseeable future.

Adrian Nairn (A Garnethill Displaced Resident),

c/o Garnethill Multicultural Centre, 21 Rose Street, Glasgow.

IN the course of your defence of Glasgow City Council's appalling paternalism in preventing competent adults from entering their homes in the vicinity of the Mack, your editorial makes without qualification the surprising claim that the city council "is compelled by law to protect life". If that were really true, the city would equally have to ban bicycle-riding, car-driving, crossing the road and so on within the city limits.

Cameron MacKenzie,

White Cottage, Muthill, Perthshire.

IT is hardly surprising that displaced Garnethill Residents and local business owners expressed their frustrations on being denied entry to their homes and places of business. Surely after six weeks such accommodation to at least a brief controlled re-entry should have been possible ? Conversely if parts of the Mack structure still pose a problem the answer is obvious – demolition immediately.

There is more than the various vested interests and contingent liabilities of the Mack involved. As shown the lives and livelihoods of many continue to be adversely affected by the to date unexplained inferno.

Allan C Steele,

22 Forres Avenue, Giffnock.

IT is almost 30 years since I left Glasgow, the well-deserved city of culture, where I first encountered the remarkable work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I remember vividly the sense of shock I felt at the time of the fire in the library four years ago. The news of the total destruction of the whole building was like a bereavement. It is hard to understand how this catastrophe was allowed to happen. Any insurer will tell you that the risk of fire increases when contractors are working in a building.

I would imagine that every inch of the the structure, inside and out, has been photographed, filmed, televised, sketched and painted over the years. In addition the original plans and drawings made by CRM are – I assume – still available.

It should be possible to construct a "virtual tour" of the original interior and exterior of the school, mostly in colour and with an expert sound commentary. This could be the centrepiece of a local visitor centre while the rebuilding takes place. Revenue from this could contribute to the reconstruction fund and additional funds might come from sale of the "tour" to art and architecture schools, galleries and museums across the globe.

If I am the first person to conceive of this project, if and when it is completed, may I please be invited to the opening ceremony.

Floreat Glasgow.

Roger Bayliss,

81 Milehouse Road, Plymouth.