Am I alone in wondering why Glasgow provides no welcome for potential visitors who might arrive by sea? The are many thousands of UK, European and sometimes North American yacht and motor-cruiser owners who cannot understand why, as a leading European waterfront city with a magnificent maritime heritage, Glasgow can offer no facilities for those who might wish to visit it by sea. Try to sail up the Clyde past Greenock on a yacht or motor-cruiser and you are advised that there are no berths for leisure craft further upstream, and no visitor facilities.

The ability to bring a yacht into a town or city centre, and make use of a secure berth for a few nights while visiting shops, museums, restaurants and many other attractions, is a visitor opportunity now well recognised by governments, councils and tourism authorities throughout Europe. Within Scotland the spending power of visiting leisure craft has long been appreciated by the communities of the west coast and islands. Moorings and pontoons have been provided and every encouragement given to use the facilities and come ashore. Glasgow, which has so much to offer the tourist, continues to ignore this form of visitor. In all the sailing and cruising guides, the message from Glasgow is: no welcome, no facilities.

An excellent example of what can be done exists in Gothenburg, a city like Glasgow that was once a major centre of shipping and shipbuilding. Here a redundant dock located virtually in the city centre has been transformed into a visiting yacht harbour. Safe pontoon berths, excellent amenities and easy access to everything any tourist might wish. Throughout the sailing season, yachts and motor-cruisers from every part of Europe can be found berthed there as their owners and crews do exactly what any other city tourist does: spend money.

Many opportunities have existed on the upper Clyde to create such a facility. But planners and developers have regarded Glasgow's redundant docks and shipyard basins, that would now be so difficult and costly to create, only as spaces to be in-filled to allow more homes and office buildings. The much-vaunted regeneration of the Clyde has, in reality, achieved nothing for the water spaces of that name other than making most of them disappear. Now the former canting basin of Prince's Dock is the only significant sheltered area of water that remains within the city.

Close to all Glasgow's many visitor attractions, the Prince's Dock canting basin could easily be developed to provide secure pontoon berths able to accommodate a wide range of visiting boats. The capital cost would not be great and certainly only a minute fraction of that of the proposed Clyde/Loch Lomond canal. Like many tourist facilities, some running-cost support would probably be needed, but as other such initiatives recognise, this would not be significant in relation to the overall visitor income generated. Much-needed local employment would be provided in managing the facility and new local business opportunities would be created.

So a question to Glasgow City Council, the area tourist board, the development agencies and the many other public bodies involved in attracting visitors to the area: how about adding a Prince's Dock yacht harbour to the facilities that the city will have in place for the Commonwealth Games?

John Riddell, 49 Castlepark Drive, Fairlie.