ANOTHER hands-off non-governmental agency has gone rogue and taken Government ministers hostage ("Housing boom plan for national park to boost falling population", The Herald, March 15). The plan designed by National Park Authority and approved by Scottish ministers aims to build 375 homes over the next five years with one-in four to be “affordable”.

This follows from the plan last week to build a high-speed road from the Butt of Lewis to the southern tip of Vatersay in the Outer Hebrides. Now we are going to cover Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park in asphalt and concrete. If we let our imaginations soar perhaps we can have a gondola ride to the top of Ben Lomond with alpine style ski chalets on the upper slopes.

This plan is absurd and doesn’t hold up to the briefest of scrutiny. The article points out that the park is “a hotspot for commuter, retirement, second and holiday homes. Nearly three in four homes being sold were going to people from outside the National Park”.

How does building 375 new homes with one-in-four to be “affordable” address the problem? It will create more homes for commuter, retirement, second and holiday homes and the proportion of “affordable” homes will actually stay the same.

Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park under convener James Stuart has lost sight of its remit. It is not about visitor numbers. It is about visitor experience. Clogging the roads in the national park will do nothing to enhance visitor experience. The park is readily accessible from the central belt and workers regularly travel from Wishaw, Motherwell and the like to do work in Helensburgh which lies just outside the park boundaries.

That this plan was endorsed by Roseanna Cunningham, the Environmental Minister, is another illustration that the SNP doesn't have a clue. It doesn’t understand why visitors come to Scotland and the nature of the visitor experience. It has lost the plot.

John Black,

6 Woodhollow House,

Helensburgh.

WHETHER by accident or design Highland Council has been given a bit of breathing space to reconsider the possible development of a site adjacent to, or even part of, Culloden Battlefield ("Culloden homes plan put on hold after planning committee mix-up", The Herald, March 15). Let us hope it thinks again and decides that any development would be inappropriate for a such a historic site.

The council and the Scottish Government must surely bring this land into public ownership and ideally provide the National Trust for Scotland with the means to make this site part of its Culloden property so that its future may never again be in doubt. We cannot go on putting so many aspects of our cultural history at risk. Our Scottish Government seems to have little concern for our heritage. One expected better.

Dr Gilbert T Bell,

8 Mains River,

Erskine.

I AM sure Marianne Taylor ("No generation has it easier than others", The Herald, March 14) meant well, but most people seem to overlook the truth about the supposed value in a house/home that has been mortgaged over a prolonged number of years – usually 25.

Using my own home as an example, the value of £200,000 takes no account of the fact that to own it, my wife and I have had to pay in the region of £120,000 in interest and compulsory life insurance, as well as re-modelling during that period, so the net value is small by comparison.

Most people of our generation are at best comfortable but only in the context of history, and certainly not well off by any modern standard of living – though we could perhaps be very comfortable if we charged for all the childcare and transportation to school and after-school activities. Just a thought.

Francis Deigman,

12, Broomlands Way,

Erskine.