On the jobs trail

KEITH Geddes should not apologise for calling down the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in support of environmental job creation initiatives in Scotland (Comment, 28 July).

I think Mr Geddes may be pushing on an open door therefore in arguing for similar joined-up thinking in respect of central Scotland.

The John Muir Trail is, however, in California. Perhaps he meant instead to refer to the John Muir Way, which is a coastal route, as I recall, that starts in Muir's birthplace, Dunbar, but stops in Edinburgh.

To get to Scotland's west coast from where Muir sailed to the United States, the shortest route is probably along the Antonine Wall - now a Unesco World Heritage site - but as the Antonine Guard has pointed out since designation, there remain access issues at several points along this route which community action such as that proposed by Mr Geddes's Central Scotland Green Network and other walking groups across the Kelvin Valley could address were funds available.

What is needed, of course, is a bit more flexibility and local control in UK welfare spending budgets, which were tightly controlled by London during the years of Labour government. And sufficient flexibility to pay supervisory wages. Instead of restricting it to 18-to-25-year-olds, bring back the flexibility of the 1980s community programme that revived New Lanark.

NEIL ROBERTSON

Glamis Terrace

Dundee