The recent articles in your paper seem to have caused consternation and reaction to the proposal at Largs Yacht Haven.

Re the letter you headed "Public will be in the way on Pencil Beach" of 5 March, commenting in the order in which the correspondent made his remarks: The proposed reclamation of rocky beach will provide additional grassed area for recreation.

The width of the proposed slipway is 40 metres not 100. The distance from the bend in the existing footpath below the road embankment to the bottom end of the slipway is approximately 80m.

The reclaimed land starts well south of the burn and follows the south side of the reef which runs NE/SW. The new path which is a few metres from the edge joins the old footpath where it bends to intersect with the road.

The new slipway is planned to be built with a type of perforated interlocking concrete block. This will be more than half covered at high water (take a look at the narrow public slipway at the car park). The advantage of this type of construction is that soil will fill spaces above high-water line and support vegetation, thus it becomes less obvious.

There is no planned vehicular access. (The council may occasionally access the area for grass cutting, litter collection etc as they do now).

There will be no yachts in the bay. Dinghies are trailed manually on their launch trolleys to the launch site.

What sane parent would allow a child to paddle in that area at present with all the rocks? At least when reclamation is completed and rocks cleared from the beach parallel to the car park, it will be safer.

Next, your front page article on 12 March about a local campaign to save Pencil Bay.

1.The photo does not show the area in which reclamation and slipway is planned.

2.The campaign poster does not show the area either so there is no public perspective of the relationship between the scale of the development and the size of the bay or distance from the Pencil monument.

3.Cost. The council, as far as I am aware have not committed to the sum stated. The figure is a cost estimate for the proposal and funding is expected from a number of sources which include the council.

To sum up, I believe that this whole scenario has been created by the absence of a plan of the proposed development which put both Pencil Monument and slipway in perspective.

Hopefully, people will see the reason to support the proposal because it will have no negative visual impact, removes an untidy corner, provides greater expanse of recreational area between railway and water, provides safe access to the water, will bring income to the struggling tourist trade and build on Largs" reputation of having the finest competitive sailing location in Scotland, if not in Britain.

All this at a possible inconvenience of a few people for one week or less per year when the new facilities and car park will have restricted access for National and International sailing events.

Dennis Cook Largs Editor"s note: The picture showing the proposals was released to us by the Scottish Sailing Institute.