Atidysum

The Scottish Government Environment secretary, Roseanna Cunningham, has proposed making littering from vehicles a specific offence (your report, 4 April). Why has this taken so long?

There was difficulty in proving who threw the litter out of a vehicle so the government intends to make the driver responsible and use numberplate recognition to impose the existing £80 fixed fine.

The quicker legislation is introduced the better, since this and other forms of littering – including chewing gum on pavements – are endemic. The government should immediately introduce a £500 penalty for all forms of littering and that would immediately stop it, a bit like razor crime in Glasgow in the 1950s, when Lord Carmont handed out ten-year prison sentences. Now there’s an idea.

CLARK CROSS

Springfield Road, Linlithgow