Letters: It's time for a tax rebate while bags lie uncollected

Published on Thursday 16 July 2009 09:54

OUR bins in the Westburn area of Wester Hailes have now not been collected for a period of two weeks, and when calling the Environmental Services Department within Edinburgh City Council I was told they might still not be collected for a further week.

I feel that this is now getting a bit out of hand, and considering that we pay for these services with our council tax, a discount should now be applied.

Why should people have to pay for something that they are not receiving?

You would not expect to go into, Asda, for example and hand over cold, hard cash and not get anything for it.

Fair enough that the money pays for various services that the council provides, but surely when the council is doing its budgets it works out what everything costs and then divides the cost of each service up to find the amount that should be charged for the service that it is going to provide.

So what it would cost for the refuse collections on your council tax for refuse collections should then be divided by 52 weeks and then discounted for the number of weeks that you have not been getting the service.

I do agree that the binmen should not be having to take pay cuts, and it's about time the council realised how valuable the binmen are. I bet none of the so-called decision makers within the council would do the job.

Mr Salkeld, Westburn, Wester Hailes

Pay rise is not the aim for binmen

BINMEN do not want a pay rise, all they want is the same standard of living as they have now.

This wage drop also affects their pensions, there are a lot of men with over 30 years' service. What have they now got to look forward to on retiring?

The councillors are pulled up over their expenses, and they also gave the go-ahead to spend millions of pounds on a tram system that three quarters of us will never use and could do without, but I think we now realise just what a good job the binmen were doing before this came to a head.

Edinburgh binman, name and address supplied

Clearing up tram project confusion

IN response to George Ritchie's comments on the tough choices for the tram project (Letters, 14 July), I would like to clarify some misconceptions.

When InfraCo works commenced on Leith Walk in October last year a single proposal was presented to the Leith Business Association (LBA) which balanced the needs of the construction project and of the local residents and businesses. At that time both TIE and Edinburgh City Council had stated publicly that the tram project was on-time and on-budget. InfraCo works were suspended during the Christmas embargo and have not progressed since.

Infraco works are now intended to recommence in September, and this time two options were presented to the LBA: one was the original proposal and a second which would have seen greater restrictions, but ostensibly ran for a shorter period.

Before any further public consultation was undertaken however, TIE elected unilaterally to withdraw the new, second option.

InfraCo works will therefore re-commence on the original basis. It cannot be the reversion to this original option in itself which is causing a delay or incurring any additional costs, as when these works were factored in, the project was on-time and on-budget.

Alan D Rudland, Vice-Chairman, Leith Business Association

No level playing field for TV sports

I FEEL that the MSP who thinks there is too much cricket on TV (News, 14 July) has got the wrong issue.

Her main concern should be the lack of coverage of live Scottish sport on BBC TV.

If the BBC can find a reputed 40 million a year to bring Formula 1 motor racing to our screens and are about to start broadcasting live English Championship football (the old second division) at an estimated cost of 45m they could surely put in a bid for Scottish SPL football rights.

Once again Scottish licence fee payers are being short changed by the London-centric BBC.

Paul Cavanagh, Southhouse Square, Edinburgh

Bring the troops out of Afghanistan

ON successive days, our lamebrain prime minister, Gordon Brown, is reported to have made the following pronouncements regarding the Afghanistan confrontation: 1) the summer offensive in Helmand province is showing signs of success, and: 2) we have enough troops in the area, and they have sufficient equipment.

What planet does this fool inhabit? This campaign is characterised by a shameless loss of military lives brought about by scandalously substandard vehicles and personal armour, yet this mantra-muttering clown hypocritically sheds crocodile tears over the deaths of soldiers who have been literally sacrificed.

Brown himself has no idea why our troops are involved, beyond vaguely pious utterances about British security coupled with starkly irrelevant mumbo-jumbo about delivering "democracy" to the region.

We should leave Afghanistan's people to their own style of society. Let's have our troops home.

Robert Dow, Ormiston Road, Tranent