WHILST I fully endorse Rosemary Goring's identification of the need to protect our precious architectural heritage ("We mus protect Scotland's precious architectural heritage", The Herald, March 13) and the Rev David Collins's call for reassessing our redundant listed buildings (Letters, March 14), I am not as optimistic as them about Scottish ministers or Historic Environment Scotland (HES) solving the problem.

Not, that is, when we have a Scottish Planning Bill, which is at stage 2 – and "dangerously close to making the situation worse" according to the "independent" panel, in your report ("Planning revamp 'is dangerously close to making situation worse", The Herald, March 13) – yet which totally fails to even mention "built heritage". Not when the Scottish Government wants to increase Permitted Development rights. Not when most councils are struggling to retain conservation expertise.

And not when we have HES only auditing itself every other year (the Scottish Historic Environment Audit, Shea), so we can't compare how poorly Scotland is doing compared to other parts of the UK. The Shea 2018 report for example only cites the net "listed building entries" – which have declined from 47,672 in 2012 to 46,954 in 2018 – an apparent net loss of 718 listed buildings. But why doesn't it actually cite how many new listed buildings were designated? Of course – this would point out the sad demolition of so much of Scotland's heritage. England provides the data annually for each of its eight regions. Why can't Scotland set out the full data every year?

HES admits about nine per cent of listed buildings are "at risk". But again this is misleading, because it only focuses on Category A listed buildings, the top few percentage. It would appear that it dare not set out the true numbers of listed buildings demolished each year or "at risk". This would likely show the alarming rate at which Scotland's heritage buildings are deteriorating. Why does HES all too often wait until the listed building is a "ruin" before it steps in? Indeed most councils fail to ever use their legal powers (Urgent Works Notice or Repairs Notice).

But Rev Collins also points out the increasing difficulty of securing funding for heritage refurbishment. With reduced lottery and other funding, the past five years have seen numerous preservation trusts fold. Yet restoration works incur 20 per cent VAT – whilst house builders can build new houses in the Green Belt at zero per cent VAT. With Help2Buy also lining the volume house builder dividends, is it not time that this VAT anomaly was addressed? Or indeed a tax relief to encourage maintenance of older properties?

Dave Sutton,

Douglas Gate,

Cambuslang.

YOUR story about the sale of former council houses placed too much emphasis on how much ex-council house tenants have made from the sale of such properties ("Scots rake in £2bn through Right to Buy", The Herald, March 14). Michael Heseltine, Environment Secretary in the Thatcher Government when the relevant housing legislation was introduced, stated that "no single piece of legislation has enabled the transfer of so much capital wealth from the state to the people". Moreover, Labour , initially opposed to such sales, when taking up the reins of government continued with the policy.

The now Lord Heseltine also said that the bill "lays the basis for perhaps as profound a social revolution as any in our history'" In that assessment he was broadly right (albeit with some political exaggeration) in more ways than one. Who would have thought that a third or more of ex-council houses would subsequently end in the portfolios of buy-to-let landlords? The main consequences of that "revolution" were the creation of a serious shortage of public sector housing and a significant increase in housing benefit costs for the taxpayer.

Ian W Thomson,

38 Kirkintilloch Road,

Lenzie.

A HOSPITAL is a hospital: they all do much the same hospitally things, so why can’t we get the design right? Major hospitals are big hotels with doctory bits added to them. Why don’t we have a stock design for a hospital that can be scaled in size according to what is needed and when it comes to building one the plans can be taken off the shelf in the knowledge that it will work even if we are stupid enough to build it in the wrong place next to the biggest sewerage treatment plant in the vicinity?

They don’t need to be works of art or individual statement projects, they need to function safely and efficiently. Perhaps with a proven design the plumbing would work, pigeon poo would be an external feature and bits of cladding wouldn’t fall off the outside. What is the point of an ornamental rooftop helicopter landing pad?

David J Crawford,

85 Whittingehame Court,

1300 Great Western Road,

Glasgow.