Pub closures

Brian Ferguson's timely article (your report, 9 March) reminds us that pubs are closing in Scotland at the rate of three a week and that this trend is strongest in rural areas.

Let us hope our legislators take account of this when they look at proposals to reduce the alcohol limit for drivers. Many rural pubs are struggling to survive. To lower the limit so that a driver could not even have one pint of moderate strength beer would push many such premises over the edge.

Evidence on the effect of a reduced limit should be looked at in a dispassionate way rather than the current macho sloganising indulged in by all parties. The social value of pubs in our small villages and dispersed rural communities is too important to be ignored as it seems to be in the current debate.

ROBERT CAIRNS

Ratcliffe Terrace

Edinburgh