Letter: Fast track rebuild

Haymarket railway station must be speedily rebuilt - ugly or otherwise (your report, 13 January).

The present cramped entrance and booking office have been in use for more than 150 years, when maybe one or two trains - not the 50 or so nowadays - arrived every hour.

Functionality must be the paramount driving force. Ornamentation, while desirable, has to be subordinate.

The present taxi rank is externally accessed through deep slush most of this winter, as are the airport bus and local buses.

Surely a covered design for the forecourt could be incorporated. The listed building must not be allowed to dominate the design.

With the present numbers of daily commuters, pedestrian underpasses at Haymarket Terrace and Dalry Road should also be incorporated into the project or it will lose many of the redevelopment benefits.

Colin C Maclean

Hillpark Avenue

Edinburgh