I FEEL I must respond to a couple of points made by Eric Melvin (Letters, February 1). Firstly, regarding his call for council tax to be raised for the three highest tax bands, F, G and H.

The value of one's home often has no relationship to the income of the owner, especially when they have lived in that home for many years. My wife and I have lived in our home for 26 years. The house is probably worth considerably more than we paid for it but we wouldn’t know as we have no interest in its current value. It is our home and it is where we intend to spend our remaining years.

We are both retired and on fixed incomes which have not and are not keeping pace with inflation. This means that the council tax takes up a larger proportion of our income with each year that passes. As it happens our home is in band E, which would be unaffected by Mr Melvin’s plans, but there will be many in the higher council tax bands whose situation is very similar to ours.

It isn’t too difficult to imagine that if implemented, this scheme would soon be expanded to include lower tax bands. The fact that the valuations were done many years ago is completely irrelevant as the current difference in property values between the different tax bands will generally be proportionately the same as before.

Secondly, in regard to entrance fees at National Trust for Scotland properties: a number of years ago to break a long journey we decided to pop into the NTS Glencoe Visitor Centre that we happened to see signposted at the roadside.

We had planned to use the toilets then go to the restaurant for lunch. Then I discovered that there was a charge of several pounds just to park. If we had gone in and purchased lunch, as we had planned to, I’m sure that would have been recompense enough for allowing us to park there for around an hour or so.

Needless to say we left and carried on to Ballachulish, where we found free parking and all the facilities and services that we required. I am happy to pay for services rendered but draw the line at exploitation.
David Clark, Tarbolton

• I AGREE with Eric Melvin's plans to fund local council services. Can he arrange to send some tourists and a national museum to Neilston and we will give it a shot?

Allan McDougall, Neilston.

Give hospitality sector a boost

SOMETIMES an idea comes along with which there is really no argument.

The plea by Alan Tomkins that more consideration should be given to the hospitality industry ("Glasgow restaurateur calls for city to embrace hospitality sector", The Herald, February 1) is irrefutable.

Reducing VAT to say 5% would be an enormous incentive to potential customers and encourage repeat business which is so important. This was a tactic which already proved its worth during the pandemic and should be repeated.

As someone who does their best to support independent business of all kinds, I know it would make a difference to me.
Brendan Keenan, Glasgow

The gas boiler timebomb

THE Scottish Government's Heat in Buildings Strategy, headed up by Patrick Harvie, the Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants' Rights, is not about reducing the cost of heating our homes. In fact it admits that costs will rise. Its purpose is to force decarbonisation of our heating systems, majoring on replacing gas and oil boilers with heat pumps.

Paragraph 87 of Annex A Summary of Actions states: "We will phase out the need to install new or replacement fossil fuel boilers in off-gas areas from 2025 and in on-gas areas from 2030." Yet in Chapter 5 of the main report they admit that moving to electrical heating will require a big infrastructure investment in electricity generation and supply. They admit that "the cost of this investment could be significant", but give no estimate of the huge sum involved.

Make no mistake, if this legislation is passed by Holyrood it will cost homeowners thousands to comply. When this becomes widely known it will make the public outrage over the SNP's gender change polices look like a storm in a tea cup.
William Loneskie, Lauder

My thoughts for today

OVER many years my early choice of listening has been Today on BBC Radio 4. In recent months I have detected a degree of distortion in pronunciation by both presenters and contributors.

Regional accents are quite acceptable as they can reflect particular interests. Sadly these have generally disappeared in favour of quite bland and characterless English.

If this were not enough the English is being distorted by the complete absence of "r" and any word ending in "ay" ( as in "hay") being pronounced "ie" (as in "die"). Such extreme distortion sometimes make concentration difficult and indeed I have switched off on occasion – am I listening to a foreign language ?

I also note the return of the dreaded "absolutely". It had almost disappeared but has recovered to infest the airwaves.
Ken Cameron, Cupar

Stretching out the curve

JOE Biden has announced he will end the Covid state of emergency on May 11 ("International In Brief", The Herald, February 1). The worst thing about “three weeks to flatten the curve” is the first three years.
Geoff Moore, Alness

Clued up on a burial

DAVID Miller’s reference (Letters, February 1) to the late John McKie, composer of the Wee Stinker Crossword, reminds me of the cruciverbalist who specified in his Last Will and Testament that he should be buried “3 Down and 2 Across”.
R Russell Smith, Largs

Life's hard lessons

SOCRATES, according to Plato, said that "the unexamined life is not worth living". Neil Mackay, quoting Socrates, said "Hail the national treasure who returned his OBE" (The Herald, January 31), where he praises Alan Cumming for doing so. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), the American writer, in his book Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons said: "What if the examined life turns out to be a clunker as well?"

Just a thought.
Thelma Edwards, Kelso

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