Time to take up arms and save what we can

Sir, – Like most citizens of Crieff, I am pleased that the Crieff CommunityTrust is making strenuous efforts to save the rapidly-deteriorating DrummondArms in the centre of the town.

The Community Right To Buy legislation is a useful tool that has been added to the statute books and has already proved successful, particularly with the crofting communities and, of course, nearby Cultybraggan.

The practicality of developing the Drummond for community purposes remains, as yet, to be determined.

Crieff recently hit the headlines when it emerged that air pollution due to traffic in the centre of the town had reached crisis point and we understand that the local authority has now designated the area an Air Quality Management Area. Surely the time is nigh to act, without further prevarication.

History is not kind to the heritage of Strathearn. We have lost, in the last hundred or so years, great buildings such asAbercairney, Ferntower and Inchbrakie. We have neglected the protection and publicising of one of Scotland’s great abbeys, Inchaffray, at Madderty. We have on our doorstep the oldest Roman frontier in the world, namely the Gask Ridge. We have unearthed a fascinating Neolithic past in the excavation of the cursus on the site of the Strathearn Campus. Both of these have seen tremendous archaeological investigation by dedicated teams.

As an area very much dependent on tourism, we must ensure that a positive approach is adopted to saving what we can and developing the future. Colin Mayall. 5a East High Street, Crieff.

Picture: AP. Waves pound a lighthouse and a pier at the mouth of the Douro river in Porto, Portugal, yesterday.