Water as an asset

Our association, concerned with environmental issues, considers that those political parties, academic and commercial bodies proposing the removal of Scottish Water from the public sector (your report, 12 April) are being shamefully short-sighted.

With climate change in years to come, Scotland's water could be a more valuable asset than oil, and "restoring its ageing infrastructure", far from being a "drain on the public purse", would prove to have been a wise investment indeed.

When is an investment a "subsidy"? We suggest it's when there's the prospect of rich pickings from privatisation, or mutualisation (inevitably leading to a sell-off). If there are no pickings, then why would anyone want to buy it?

How, in any case, can you "mutualise" something that is already mutual, in that it is owned, assets paid for, by the public?

Scottish Water is lean, local, responsive to community groups and sensitive to the environment.

What a sad little country we will seem if we sell off a superb and successful public asset, handed down to us by the foresight of earlier generations; and what a visionless, short-termist little parliament this one would appear in history.

LOUISE MAGUIRE

Fairmilehead Association

Caiystane Gardens

Edinburgh