Further to your article on December 6 about SSPCA and Argyll and Bute Council investigations into the welfare and fly-grazing of five horses and ponies at Blairvadach, in my view the mistreatment of the horses at the site – including the old and noble mare pictured with your report – is unforgiveable.

A council spokesperson claimed in the article the horses were placed on their land this year without their permission.

The owner of these animals has been enjoying free grazing at the council’s Blairvadach site since at least early 2015 when the council office was still open and staffed.

When not at Blairvadach the owner moved them nearby to fly-graze on local farmers’ land. So the council has turned a blind eye for nearly four years.

Police Scotland has submitted a report to Rhu and Shandon Community Council this month, which is available on the community council’s website, stating they received 27 calls about horses loose on the A814 during seven weeks in October and November.

Never mind the potential for a serious accident, the amount of wasted police time on this issue must be running into the tens of thousands of pounds, not to mention the amount of council legal and environmental health funds lost pursuing the issue through the courts.

Fly-grazing is a huge problem in England and is gradually gaining momentum in Scotland. The council’s inaction on this case for many years gives a clear message to irresponsible horse owners that Argyll and Bute is the place to come to.

On behalf of all the thousands of voting adults in this area who care about animals, for the responsible horse and pony owners paying upwards of £2,000 each year for livery, for drivers using the A814, for the officers who keep getting called out to Blairvadach and, most of all, for the horses and ponies themselves, let us all hope the council finally takes responsibility and does the right thing.

John Murphy

Garelochhead

They defy the worst of Helensburgh’s weather and the manic drivers to ensure our children get to school safely and in reward the council has given their stoic and loyal lollipop men and women a special Christmas present - if the ‘policy options’ contained in Argyll and Bute Council’s budget proposals become reality, you’ll all be sacked in the new year!

It appears from this proposal that children’s safety in Argyll and Bute is now officially deemed by the council to be a ‘luxury’ that can be abandoned to save a few pennies.

Are there no councillors left with the social and moral conscience to prevent the inevitable tragedy that will result from this callous Liberal Democrat policy?

James Robb

Helensburgh

The ‘Beast from the East’, which led to Argyll and Bute Council staff receiving various awards (Advertiser, December 6), arrived in Helensburgh on a Thursday afternoon at the end of February, caused chaos for three days and was gone.

The Beast from the East caused a Met Office red alert. Our local and national governments panicked. The First Minister and then transport minister ordered heavy goods vehicles off the roads. The chief executive of Argyll and Bute Council ordered the schools and Helensburgh and Lomond Civic Centre to close at 1pm. At the time, there was half an inch of snow on the ground.

We have a civil contingency officer located in the Civic Centre. You can pick up printed advice in three different colours from the Scottish Government - “It won’t happen here is not a plan, are you ready?”. Five boxes are ticked - get the right advice; think about risks to your community; think about local skills, knowledge and resources’ involve everyone who wants to help; and write and test a plan.

The Argyll and Bute Council plan must have been misplaced.

There was five to six inches of snow overnight on the Thursday/Friday. There were no snowploughs out. Millions of pounds worth of equipment to deal with snow was sitting idle.

The first snowplough appeared on my local road at 2.30pm on the Friday. The main roads into Helensburgh remained open throughout with traffic compacting the fallen snow.

In the town centre, foot traffic turned the snow into ice on the pavements. Any efforts to clear the ice were by individuals, not the council.

Shopkeepers who went to the Blackhill depot to ask for salt and grit to treat the pavements outside their shops were turned away without. By the Sunday, supermarket shelves were bare of essentials.

We live in an age of ‘just in time’ delivery. Supermarket shelves have to be restocked every day. With no trucks on the road, there were no deliveries and the shops ran out of milk, bread, fruit, vegetables and meat. By Sunday, the shelves for these items were bare. The population of Helensburgh were facing starvation.

Fortunately for all concerned, the thaw set in on the Monday. It took two weeks for the supermarket shelves to be fully stocked again.On Monday and Tuesday, the snow plough drivers were driving around town looking in vain for snow to clear!

But our local councillors were invisible throughout. Hiding under the duvet when they should have been in the emergency command post in the local HQ following the local plan.

The problems experienced last week by O2 show that unexpected things do happen. Modern life is dependent on technology. When the technology fails, what is the back-up plan?

The ‘internet of things’ depends on electricity. No electricity, no phone, no heat, The prospect is stark. A major failure in the electric grid could take up to five days to correct from a ‘black start’.

The Beast from the East should have been a wake up call. Instead, it has been declared a local triumph, with Cleland Sneddon, Argyll and Bute Council’s chief executive, handing out awards at public expense.

The action/inaction of our national and local governments endangered lives of those in the central belt, including Helensburgh.

John Black

Woodhollow House, Helensburgh

In response to a recent letter an about littering and the shocking amount of litter on our shores, these feelings are widespread and reflect a lot of people’s views.

There is strong evidence that most of the litter arriving on shores both in the UK and globally is coming from shipping and waste dumped at sea. George Monbiot recently reported that 46 per cent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is now three times the size of France, is discarded fishing nets, and much of the rest is other shipping waste.

Cruise ships are reportedly dumping all their waste to avoid port taxes. We recently cleaned a long stretch of Dumbarton’s foreshore only to find it completely covered with new litter after the recent storm.

There are hundreds of new pieces of litter (mostly plastic) per square metre. Some of our most commonly-used plastics can only be recycled at best once or twice, and are downgraded each time; each plastic bottle on sale is typically 98-100 per cent virgin plastic.

Plastic can be useful, for example for medical equipment, but convenience food packaging is breaking down into micro-plastics in our water supplies, and scientists are now discovering these are toxic.

In the 1980s, a public outcry about ‘disposable’ plastics was successfully quashed when the plastics industry lobby transferred the blame away from themselves.

They pointed the finger at the ‘littering’ consumer, and funded campaigns including Keep Britain Tidy.

Sadly, plastic does not disappear when it goes into the recycling bin. The UK’s recycling facilities can only cope with one third of our plastic waste.

The rest is being shipped abroad, where it is often dumped in rivers and ends up back in the sea.

This time, we need governments to force industry to stop production of single-use plastic before it’s too late.

The Friends of Dumbarton Foreshore

Via email

I WOULD like to wish your readers a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

For many this is always an exciting time, but we know it can be frantic trying to get everything ready for the big day.

I want to gently remind your readers to remember that shopworkers are people as well. They will be working really hard to make your shopping experience as stress-free and enjoyable as possible.

A recent Usdaw survey shows that every minute of every day another shop worker is verbally abused, threatened with violence or physically attacked.

Shop workers tell us that incidents are more frequent throughout the Christmas and New Year period. When shops are busier, customers can be stressed, and are more likely to take out their frustration on staff.

Talking to our members who work in retail, I know that verbal abuse cuts deep. Many will go home after a shift upset about an unpleasant incident that took place at work that day and worried that it will happen to them again.

That is why Usdaw, the shop workers’ union, is running a Respect for Shopworkers campaign, asking customers to ‘Keep your Cool at Christmas’. It’s a simple message, but remembering that shopworkers are working extra hard, and treating shop workers with respect will mean that everyone can have a happier Christmas.

Paddy Lillis

General Secretary, Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw)