I read with interest and a sense of mounting dismay and incredulity the [East Lothian Council-produced four-page] feature in your most recent edition concerning the proposed flood defences for Musselburgh.

If – and it’s a mighty ‘if’ – the anonymous author of this fiction is to be believed then Musselburgh’s future is indeed bleak.

One ‘photograph’ in particular was designed specifically to spread fear and panic, showing cars floating down High Street and St Peter’s Church engulfed in water.

It was dated 2022 as if it had already happened. Of course it had not; it was what we now know to call ‘fake news’. I have seen less scary scenarios for Venice.

Alas, this is all too typical of those who are determined to foist upon Musselburgh a scheme that is as inappropriate as it is expensive.

This is not in any way to deny the potential impact of climate change. But what concerns myself and many others I have spoken to in my home town is the manner in which the consultant, contractor and East Lothian Council have gone about their business.

Information has had to be rung out of them and obfuscation and obstruction have been the preferred tactics, while transparency and accountability have been notable for their absence. It is time that such conduct was publicly challenged and robustly examined.

Meanwhile, it may be worth reminding your readers what they will get for what is believed will cost at least £42 million.

Four bridges will be demolished – including the three pedestrian bridges near to the mouth of the River Esk. The only bridges to be spared are the Roman and Rennie Bridges.

The estimated cost of this act of cultural vandalism has been put at £20 million. Inexplicable and unnecessary though this is, the removal of the bridges will also effectively cut off one part of the town from the other. Another major component of what is proposed is the erection of a two-metre-high concrete wall which will flank both banks of the Esk as it flows through Musselburgh and into the Forth.

We can be assured this will not be a thing of beauty.

What it will certainly be is bad for property prices.

Where, say, residents of Eskside West now have a view of the river, they will behold a blank canvas for graffitists.

New Street, where I lived most of my adult life, will likely become a rat run when the replacement for the Electric Bridge is built.

And Fisherrow Links, the town’s most valuable green space and a haven for children, will, for however long the construction work takes, be transformed into a builders’ yard.

I’ll leave the scaremongering to others but, in contrast to the scheme’s consultant team and elected members and council officials, I am concerned with reality rather than fantasy. Who knows what will happen in the next 200 years but I do know that only fools would try to predict so far into the future.

What we must do, surely, is seek sustainable, nature-based and cost-effective solutions to the climate crisis, none of which, it seems, have been properly explored in this case.

Alan Taylor

Manor Cottage

Bowden

Near Melrose