Your Say: TIE chief's move is the start of bad news for project

Published on Saturday 15 November 2008 10:04

Do you worry that the tram project will go massively over its budget like the Scottish Parliament did?

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HAVING followed the Edinburgh trams with interest and based on my experience of running major construction projects, I feel Willie Gallagher's departure heralds a great deal of bad news.

I am not aware if the council tax payers appreciate how bad this would be for Edinburgh.

Will the spin doctors that work for Mr Gallagher be going as well?

It is time the city council started to look in detail at the cost of this project it has an obligation to the council tax payer.

One of the reasons the council not considering cancellation is that under the funding agreement with Transport Scotland, the council pick ups all the abortive costs. This would cost the council more than the promised 40 million contribution!

The downturn in developments in Leith and Granton ensured that the city council would not be able to afford their contribution and this is before the delays currently admitted which will further increase the cost.

The council tax payers appear to be between a rock and a hard place! Abortive costs 177m-plus or an unquantifiable sum to complete a project out of control.

I predict that the bad news will break early next month.

John R T Carson, Kirkliston Road, South Queensferry

Piper is needed to round up the rats

GIVEN the recent departures of Neil Renilson and Willie Gallagher, can I suggest that the city council might want to try and headhunt the Pied Piper of Hamlin, as the number of rats in the city is steadily increasing due to them leaving that sinking ship currently being built between Leith and the Airport.

Keith J Bell, Sighthill Rise, Edinburgh

Creeping blight is threatening Capital

WHILE members of the advisory body to UNESCO on its World Heritage Sites are still in town, I hope that they will caution or restrain the council from its creeping destruction of the integrity of both Old and New Towns.

While Caltongate and other projects have been able to ram through any planned objections, the case that the council's planning committee seems hell-bent on finding open spaces in the city centre to infill with tendentious new building which it portrays as fitting modernisation.

Witness the little green space in front of Calton Hill which is no more, and even now a historic small garden in front of the monastery which served for a time as a Huguenot temple in Hart Street Lane is to be built over by a new dwelling wholly out of scale and character with the local street.

Local views, sustainability of actual communities within the city centre, green space, and even danger to remaining large trees, not to mention the actual despoiling of the pre-18th and 18th/19th century heritage, and in the case of Hart Street against all professional advice, seem to count for nothing.

Why?

Doesn't anyone there remember the 1960s near planned destruction of significant parts of the city? This time it is an insidious creeping blight on the city.

Gordon Peters, Hart Street, Edinburgh

Don't forget tragic rail disaster troops

ON Tuesday the News reminded us all that "for as long as British soldiers put their lives on the line across the world, it is not to much to ask that for two minutes a year we remember them".

With these sentiments in mind, I decided to take an hour from work and pay a visit of respect to Rosebank cemetery and the war memorial to the 7th Battalion Royal Scots ( Leith Volunteers) for 11 o'clock.

As I approached the large memorial I was rather saddened to see only one other stranger had taken to time to also pay respect at this time of remembrance.

Rosebank Cemetery has two memorials dedicated to the memory of our First World War lads, neither of them had any wreaths laid down, apart from a couple of single poppies.

Rosebank Cemetery holds a great place in the history of Leith, as the place of remembrance for the 214 brave men who died on May 22, 1915 at Gretna, in Britain's worst rail disaster whilst the troops headed to fight in Gallipoli.

Now the 90th anniversary of the end of the Great War has drawn to a close, I hope that the next year, more will be done to pay tribute to the soldiers that rest there. Surely there could have been a wreath laid at Rosebank by local, national and MSPs and councillors from the area.

Lawrence Dinse, Crewe Road North, Edinburgh

Ways to check out favourite charities

FURTHER to your leader column expressing concern about the lack of transparency demonstrated by some charities (News, November 12), readers might be interested to know that there is now a way they can check if their favourite good cause is being open and fair, honest and legal when raising money to support its work.

They can look for the Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB)'s tick logo that is displayed by charities that have signed up to practising high standards when asking for money.

Many Scottish charities are already displaying the FRSB tick logo – Poppyscotland on most of its collection tins, Sick Kids Friends Foundation on goods collection bags, ERSKINE on its recent adverts, Capability Scotland in its charity shop windows, Bethany and the Thistle Foundation on their websites and CHAS on its recruitment adverts.

All these charities – and many more all over Scotland – have joined the self-regulatory scheme for fundraising to provide members of the public with the reassurance they are looking for when giving money to good causes.

So next time one of your readers wants to make a much needed and welcomed donation to charity, they can look for the FRSB tick logo and know that where they see it, they can give with confidence.

Kate Higgins, FRSB Manager for Scotland and Northern Ireland, Calton Road, Edinburgh