Bridge costs

Jackson Carlaw (convener, Holyrood's Forth Bridge Replacement Committee) must show us why the replacement Forth bridge is to cost us at least eight times the present one, and that allows for inflation (your report, 13 May).

The new bridge uses less steel and labour and does not have to meet the new road costs of the present one; also, similar bridges elsewhere are being built for much less. Yet ours is to cost more than three times the proposed budget cuts. Why?

Far cheaper, quicker, safer and permanent would be a shipping-friendly causeway positioned upstream of Rosyth. Why has this never been carefully considered?

TIM FLINN

Garvald