Cathedral of Trees has air of tranquillity Opposition MSPs excluded from talks

Sir,

Following your excellent article ‘Trees bloom for Remembrance Day’ (The Oban Times, November 9), my grandson and I followed up attending the Remembrance Day parade with a visit to the Cathedral of Trees.

It is many years since I was there last. At that time it was looking sad and overgrown.

I was delighted to see how much care and attention it has obviously received recently. Despite grandson and Labrador having a boisterous game of hide and seek among the hedged aisles, the place has a wonderful air of tranquillity.

I would encourage Oban folk to go back and visit again – and leave a pebble in the pot to show support. Mike Robertson, Oban. Sir,

It is extremely disappointing that the Scottish Government chose not to invite any opposition politicians to attend the Convention of the Highlands and Islands held in Oban last month.

While apparently being open to the public, there was no information advertising the event on the Scottish Government website, which instead only carried the details of last year’s event in Inverness.

The whole thing smacks of the type of closed-shop exercise that we have all come to expect from this centralised SNP government, which is clearly only interested in parroting party political messages rather than having a genuine, cross-party conversation about the future for the Highlands and Islands.

I have written to the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Keith Brown MSP, to make my concerns clear. Perhaps if the Scottish Government is keen to engage with local groups, then next time it will extend an invitation to local politicians from all parties to join in the conversation.