YOUR latest letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser includes views on the new park and ride facility planned for the centre of Helensburgh, a response to MSP Maurice Corry's views on taxation, thoughts on the closure of a Loch Lomond slipway, and reaction to an anti-nuclear campaigner being cleared of a breach of the peace for blocking a nuclear convoy.

To have your say on any local issue, and to see your thoughts in the Advertiser's next print edition, email editorial@helensburghadvertiser.co.uk with your name and address by 5pm on Monday at the latest

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There are stories about that we are to get the old gasometer site on Helensburgh’s Princes St as a park and ride facility for about 50 cars. This is presented as a good idea but it really is a botched opportunity.

Two years ago the council built a, supposedly private, new car park for the council offices. At the time I spoke to several of our councillors and suggested that they amalgamate that car park with the adjacent gasometer site, put another floor on top of it, and create a really useful park and ride car park.

There could be a reserved part for council employees; it would, however, have been more sensible to create parking for them in the unused 'garden' behind the council offices.

Now we will have a small space that will not accommodate a quarter of the cars that are parked and choke the town every day. That situation is particularly bad on Colquhoun Street, where there is chaotic traffic congestion and insufficient room for two way traffic.

This has not been helped by the recent lunatic decision to widen the pavement and narrow the road. It gets worse at the junction of Argyle Street, where it is impossible to see properly when trying to cross or turn.

Using both the council car park and the gasometer site together and creating an entrance from Clyde Street there could be well over 100 spaces available for commuters with a pedestrian gate across from the station. This is something that has been crying out for action for years

Dougie Blackwood

Douglas Drive East, Helensburgh

I thought Maurice Corry was a champion of the our armed forces and wanted to encourage service personnel to relocate to Helensburgh and Lomond, beyond the paltry 15 per cent of the current compliment of service personnel based at Faslane who actually live and bring their families up with us.

But his daft claim in the Advertiser (February 9) that Scotland is “ the most taxed part of the UK” demonstrates that he is part of a Tory campaign to scare service personnel from coming to live amongst us on the wholly false and cynical prospectus.

Mr Corry is so daft that he exposes his own myth in his own article when he helpfully confirms that people earning over £43,430 per annum in Scotland will pay higher rate income tax on that part of their salaries over £43,430, when in England and Wales, the higher rate will kick in at £45,000.

Your readers will be interested to learn that according to the rates of pay for service personnel published by the MoD, around 90 per cent of them are paid well below the £4,3430 threshold and don’t pay higher rate income tax anyway.

Mr Corry conveniently forgets to mention that rates for council tax and land and buildings transaction tax for middle market homes in Scotland are much less costly than the equivalent in the south.

In addition, as our house prices are well below the price of comparative properties in the south, service families can afford in Helensburgh and Lomond much more substantial properties while enjoying free prescriptions, no university tuition fees - and we still have an NHS from which Mr Corry’s family benefits.

So there we have it. The High Priest of Unionism in Helensburgh and Lomond enjoying all the fruits of being a Scottish citizen but peddling falsehoods and scaring away potential new residents to our communities.

When will he step up to the plate and force the UK government to provide the relocation packages it gives a chosen few with a bit of braid on their uniforms, to the ordinary service personnel to live and work in our communities so that they can enjoy the close family life which Mr Corry and so many of us enjoy?

Graeme McCormick

Convener, SNP Dumbarton Constituency Association

Rehouse Cottage, Arden

With reference to your recent article re the closure of the slipway at Milarrochy Bay.

Every boat owner registered with Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority (LLTNPA) was informed by letter that the authority are closing Milarrochy Bay Slipway.

In their letter they state that "the relatively low numbers of craft being launched from Milarrochy Bay (equivalent of one per day in 2015) means it does not make efficient use of the NPA resources to man the slipway".

Only a few weeks ago the NPA website invited mariners to contact them for the code to gain access to Milarrochy slipway if it was unmanned. I was up there at the weekend and there is still a sign with a contact number.

The letter goes on to state that "the health and safety risks associated with motorised craft launching...without support from NPA Ranger service are too high"! Surely if it was deemed safe to launch independently in the past it is still safe to do so?

The letter to registered boat owners also states: "We want people to continue to enjoy this area as safely as possible." Surely one small boat launching per day is no hazard.

The letter claims that the NPA have the "aim of striking a balance between the needs of all visitors". How can this be if they are singling out one section of visitor after another? First campers and now boaters!

As a responsible mariner I regularly check the NPA boating section and have been keeping records since 2015. NPA Notice to Mariners states: "We have been carrying out a maintenance regime for the hazard and navigation buoys on Loch Lomond."

Whilst claiming to be safety conscious the NPA singularly fails big time. The same four faults have been on the site from 2015 and are still not rectified today!

There is room for everyone who is responsible and safety conscious on and around Loch Lomond. Perhaps if the NPA spent less money on ‘consultations’ and ‘charrettes’ (or should it be charades?) they would be able to support the third founding aim of the National Park Authority, which is "To promote understanding and enjoyment (including enjoyment in the form of recreation) of the special qualities of the area by the public". This is set by Government and is therefore the duty of LLTNPA to uphold.

Mary M Jack,

via email

It is a very good thing that our newspaper has reported Brian Quail's actions in very gently and non violently delaying one of the MoD convoys that regularly transport nuclear warheads across Scotland.

His action was found not to be a 'breach of the peace'.

In his summing up, Brian was allowed to explain his actions fully and was given the time and respectful attention required to allow him to describe how any nuclear weapon would breach all the internationally

agreed rules because of their devastating humanitarian consequences, indiscriminate nature and long ranging impact on generations as yet unborn.

This is very welcome and it is gratifying to see it reported.

Brian had asked me to be a defence witness so that he could include in his evidence the findings of the United Nations Working Group on nuclear weapons in which I had participated, making a submission from Scotland with The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which has consultative status with United Nations.

The procurator fiscal objected to my first answer, on the grounds that I was not a lawyer, and the magistrate informed me that I was not a legal expert witness.

I continued to do my best to answer Brian's questions and express that I respected the personnel and the process of the court.

Since Brian had not been instructed to change the questions, and I was under oath, I could only answer his questions, stopping each time I was asked. This eventually led to me being asked to leave on consideration of contempt of court.

When the case was resumed on February 9, I was not charged, or called for cross examination by the procurator fiscal and after Brian's case I was relieved to be told that there would be no further action.

For decades, I have been committed to nuclear disarmament and to attempting to understand how these anyone could think of developing or using such a terrifying threat to all humanity beyond all borders.

As a 'boom baby', I think international arbitration is the way forward, and citizens everywhere must take responsibility for that to happen.

Janet Fenton

Vice-chair, Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament