Build new homes that will pass the test of time

Published on Saturday 11 October 2008 11:21

I READ your feature "Building a better future" (Evening News, October 6). We have been down this road before, regeneration, upgrading.

Nothing has changed for some people. There are people being put into this area who have no intention of working and have no knowledge of the area.

Get past the idea that all the original 25,000 people worked locally, most of us had to work all over Edinburgh and beyond, so to make the excuse for today is rubbish.

Sebastian Tombs says all the details of hedges and bends are considered. What about the main points, such as traffic?

I have argued for years Niddrie Mains Road cannot handle this volume of traffic. At the moment Duddingston Park South and Duddingston Road West are a joke for traffic, only being added to by a new supermarket petrol station that not many people want locally.

And what I see in Craigmillar are the slums of tomorrow.

Do not say they need better housing – why are the houses in Craigentinny, Stenhouse, Prestonfield and other areas, built by the same architects and builders, still there?

One must ask the question: who is doing the proper thing?

David Brown, Niddrie Mains Road, Edinburgh

Pram users at fault, not the bus drivers

THERE is not a campaign by Lothian Buses against mothers and babies. It's a system of controlling the presence of wheeled vehicles on board public transport.

Lothian Buses have followed the guidelines set down by law to the best of their ability. Pushchairs (folded and unfolded) are allowed, prams are a different situation as we all know, they can occupy the wheelchair position and unfortunately there is the odd situation when a wheelchair-bound person requires the position to be vacated, a selfish pram user refuses to move, having paid a fare and intends to stay where they are. The onus lies with the driver then to take action. So, mothers with pushchairs, do not vent your anger on Lothian transport, turn it on the selfish pram user.

Tom Lee, Loganlea Drive, Edinburgh

Don't blame God for man's evil acts

STEUART CAMPBELL calls JK Rowling's belief in the afterlife "regrettable" and likens belief in spirit to fundamentalist Muslims killing innocents in suicide attacks (Letters, October 8).

There may be some truth in this but I notice that Mr Campbell does not mention the history of atrocities carried out in the name of Christianity, so let me do it for him. From Charlemagne to Adolf Hitler (who believed he was doing, quote, "God's business") and beyond to Northern Ireland, the USA and other parts of the world, untold millions of innocents have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ for over 2000 years.

Not that other belief systems are squeaky clean. Hindus and even seemingly peaceful Bhuddists are no strangers to killing. Meanwhile the state of Israel has never exactly been renowned for brotherly love.

So the answer is obviously get rid of religion and the killing stops, right? Wrong. Such a view is simplistic, unworkable and just doesn't hold water.

The pogroms of Josef Stalin's aetheistic Soviet Union killed many, many more innocents than even Hitler's Nazi state. The killing fields of Cambodia under Pol Pot saw a regime where not one family was left untouched state-sponsored murder.

If those who have twisted scriptures to justify killing did not have religion, they would have found some other reason. God cannot be blamed for the evil which man does.

Leslie John Thomson, Moredunvale Green Gilmerton, Edinburgh

People will pick up bill for bank crisis

THE global financial crisis has laid waste some major financial institutions in Britain, the US and Europe. In a bid to look like it was doing something, the Government has thrown good money after bad.

They have used taxpayers' money that was not available for cancer or dementia research, education and the under privileged.

The Government says it must do this to protect the banking system or we shall all suffer. None of this will prevent a deep and lasting recession, which will only burden ordinary people and not the banks.

Not only will ordinary working people suffer the unemployment, high prices and inflation; they will also have to pay the taxes to repay the Government debt, for many years to come.

The Government has applied a socialist solution to a capitalist problem. I am all in favour of the free market: let the bankers go down.

If the Government wants to painlessly raise the capital, then just pull our troops out of the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Malcolm McDonald, Pretoria Road, Larbert

Investors got cold feet from Iceland

I AM somewhat bemused at the situation facing many of our local authorities who invested in the Icelandic financial sector. In Scotland more than 45 million of taxpayers' money may be at risk as a result of the banking crisis.

However, earlier this year a number of international agencies had cut the credit rating of Icelandic banks, and the growing risk of the Icelandic banking system was a situation that had been highlighted in some cases since early 2007.

Warnings were passed onto many local authority financial managers, prompting some of them to stop investing in Iceland. For example, South Yorkshire police and fire authorities stopped investing in Icelandic banks in June, after a warning from its advisory service.

This raises the question of whether our local authorities were given inappropriate advice, or whether they were given advice which they chose to ignore.

Alex Orr, Bryson Road, Edinburgh