Trams are ruining us

Published on Friday 19 September 2008 09:51

TRAMS are good for Edinburgh? I cannot stand any more nonsense in respect of this statement. I am writing because you are destroying me before I have even had the chance to get started. You are destroying the whole of Edinburgh with your badly planned, not thought out properly, unbelievably badly managed scheme.

You are running roughshod over small businesses in Edinburgh like cowboys. You don't care about this city at all. You don't care about the people and you don't care about your futures.

I have worked extremely hard for the last year trying to put together a good business in Edinburgh. I expected problems, I expected to have to work hard. I do know what having a small business is about, however, you have made a mockery of my efforts and the people who have been involved.

I would like each one of you to have to live every day worrying where the next penny is coming from. I would like each of you to have to pay extortionate rent and bills to live and work. I would like each of you to try to live a normal person's life for one week on nothing, trying to survive with bills coming at you from every direction. I challenge each one of you to live on 57 a week and pay rates, rent, electricity, gas and telephone.

To Edinburgh Council I say this, if you want rates from me, let my business run properly and you will get your rates. If you want your city to work properly, let it work properly. Bring some common sense into the situation.

I am not saying trams are bad for Edinburgh, but your lack of proper planning is costing us money and bankrupting parts of this city! Normal, everyday people cannot pay bills without earning.

Do you want Edinburgh to be a ghost town? The amount of jobs available is going down, the criteria for getting those jobs, even normal restaurant/cleaning/security/shop jobs, is going up. It is an impossible situation.

I have seen so many people leave Edinburgh in the last few months because they can no longer afford to live here. Everyone is talking about how hard it is to do business, how expensive it is to live here.

The only people with any free income in this city are the council, politicians, and bank managers. The rest of us have nothing. This year, 400,000 was paid to the Scottish National Orchestra for the inconvenience of not being able to play in the Usher Hall for one month, yet you only paid 4000 at most to the businesses in Leith Walk for eight months of disruption.

If you truly believe that trams are good for Edinburgh then put your cash where your mouth is. Pay us the amount of compensation we deserve. Stop talking rubbish. Each and every business in Leith, Shandwick Place, Haymarket and Princes Street deserves a break for the hardship you have put them through. I would pay compensation of at least 15,000.

I am at my wits' end. I cannot take any more. I advertised my business from a festival stall for which I paid 1000. I did not get it free. I should have done. After the festival finished, another hole and a metre-high fence appeared outside my shop. The whole of Leith Walk at the bottom end is now being dug up again. I have just wasted money trying to promote my business. I have just wasted time trying to live with these works and I have come to the conclusion that Edinburgh is a backward city with no forward vision. All you do is talk and pat each other on the back.

Do you think tourists will really still come to Edinburgh if it becomes the most expensive city in the world? Do you really think our city looks as beautiful as it once did? Have you seen the state of the shops and buildings?

I am now almost bankrupt thanks to Edinburgh City Council, TIE and the Scottish Government. I would like you to pay me my investment of 38,000 back, so that I can pay my landlord, the bank, my family and Edinburgh Council.

I have not had to live like this for 30 years and, at 47, find myself poorer than I was at 17. I have put 30 years of hard work into this city. It has all gone down the drain. I want to trade in Edinburgh and have a lot of good ideas, but everywhere I turn I am met with a brick wall. There is more business opportunity in Tunisia than in Edinburgh. Edinburgh this year is a dead city thanks to silly business decisions, lack of reality and lack of investment in people, education and work.

The people in this country need sensible government, not silly schemes. Business needs freedom to survive, people need work for the economy to survive. We are now a third world country. Please, please look around and see the reality and please give small businesses a chance.

I don't deserve to be destroyed and neither does anyone else. Stop it and help us. Give more compensation to the other small businesses so they can invest in their city, provide work and keep the economy going. Stop spending millions on schemes that won't help anyone. Walk before you run. Listen to what the people have to say instead of believing your own fairy stories . . . and try living on benefits for a week.

Yours sincerely,

Sandra Majdoub, Royal Artizana