New Usher Hall

It IS looking increasingly likely that the landscaping outside the Usher Hall is not going to be finished in time for this year's Edinburgh International Festival.

If those ugly Portakabins and piles of slabs waiting to be put in place are still going to be in evidence, this doesn't give out the message of Edinburgh as a so-called "World Heritage Site".

I cannot help thinking that, if the same project had been under way in some of the Eastern bloc countries, the work would have been completed in a fraction of the time.

However, I do congratulate the planners on moving the clock tower to the other side of the road. It's just a pity that the timepiece doesn't seem to be working.

KATE MAXWELL

Comiston Road

Edinburgh