Letters: Hub is at the heart of Glentress community

I fail to understand why the FC has taken the business from one local company - who have put heart and soul into building Glentress into the flagship it is - and handed it to another local business, who already own a restaurant at the entrance to Glentress. Talk about eradicating the competition.

It seems The Hub have been punished for being realistic and basing their tender on figures they observe week in, week out, rather than on the inflated figures the FC use to justify the massive cost of the project. I think that the FC has underestimated the anger this has generated., both in the local community and in the biking community as a whole.

A petition started at the weekend has already garnered well in excess of 1,200 signatures, with people from as far afield as New Zealand, Spain and America adding their protest. (www.ipetitions. com/petition/savethehub)

FIONA DALGLEISH

Kingsmeadows Road

Peebles

The Hub has grown up with, and influenced our community way beyond just the mountain bikers that they service. Local businesses have benefited, whether directly as suppliers, or indirectly from the knock-on effects that a hugely successful venture brings to an area. Many other mountain biking trail centres in the UK have tried to emulate The Hub, but all have failed.

The Hub is a much-loved friend of the community. Why not allow Tracy and Emma to buy the land that their business is on? Give them and their 30 employees the opportunity to work hard for their own futures.

CARLA MURPHY

Border Vets, Innerleithen Veterinary Surgery

Lesley Riddoch suggests it would be a good idea for the Forestry Commission to sell small plots of land so the people could build small huts in the forest. A somewhat idealistic suggestion.

If this did happen, the would-be purchaser would have to pay the Forestry Commission up to 75 per cent valuation pick-up within a 20-year period of purchase if a structure was built on the land based on the district valuer's estimate of the valuation. So the commission not only sells the land for a realistic sum but also takes profit from any development.

This is what stifles entrepreneurial development of forestry land, whether for individual or commercial development.

SAM SCOTT

Chester Street

Edinburgh

In RESPONSE to the question posed by Lesley Riddoch in the last paragraph of her article, the answer is a definitive no.When was the last time any substantive proposal on land reform in Scotland was mentioned by either Labour or the SNP?

My decade-long experience of corresponding on this issue with the current environment minister, Roseanna Cunningham and the Cabinet secretary for finance, John Swinney, leads me to believe that neither can even encapsulate the concept of a Scottish national park being owned by the nation in the way that Scandinavian national parks are owned by their peoples.

Even down to the level of supporting the snaring of wild animals to protect the game shooting activities of the sectional vested interests of a veritable land monopoly, the SNP have betrayed their radical land reforming pedigree.

There is a political vacuum where a land reform movement should be. Who will fill the gap?

RON GREER

Armoury House

Blair Atholl, Perthshire