Letters: Flood prevention scheme is a needless drain of cash

The cost of the scheme amounts to a subsidy for each of the 500 households potentially affected by flooding once every 100 years.

Quite apart from the question of whether public money should be spent on houses that were built in recent years in known flood plains, should we not ask ourselves whether this is not a similar case of over-reaction as during the recent snowfall panic?

Common-sense preparations are required, timely and accurate information and warnings (there is only one high water gauge in the Water of Leith) and a mentality that can reconcile the manageable risk of a rare flooding event against the pleasure of living near a natural water course.

If there is a need to spend public money on flood prevention it should be spent on greatly expanding and maintaining sustainable urban drainage all over the city: the rapid increase of hard surfaces and parallel loss of soft surfaces over recent decades has led to the rapid discharge of rainwater into sewers and thence into the river. This is one of the biggest causes of high water levels during heavy rain.

Harald Tobermann, Pilrig Street, Edinburgh

Stop tram project and cut our losses

RE the letter from James O'Neill (News, January 13).

When has the prosperity of a city been directly related to a tram network? It could be successfully argued that Dublin is not a city to be envious of. Has James forgotten the economic situation in Eire?

I cannot emphasise enough my opposition to the tram system. This has been a waste of money since day one – those in power, at the time of agreeing this disgrace should be brought to account. At the very least, an apology should be made to all citizens of Edinburgh for the cost and loss of income incurred by all, thanks to their incompetence.

If anyone continues to think the introduction of the tramway is a good idea – we have yet to see the construction of the overhead cables (we have yet to see the construction of very much to be honest) – these overhead cables will hardly be an asset to "the look of the city".

Please cut our losses and cease work on this disgrace.

Brian Johnstone, South Gyle, Edinburgh

Give us panda cars, not bears

I, NO doubt like many readers, would have been delighted at the news of the two pandas coming to Edinburgh Zoo. What a boost for the zoo and tourist industry. Their arrival seemed to be part of a trade deal between China and the UK.

But it appears that we have to pay for the pleasure – sorry, but during these times of austerity the last thing I want to see is money being used for this kind of thing.

I would rather see the money spent putting more "panda" cars on the road to fight crime during a period where theft is likely to increase, which already is evident in South Queensferry.

Ray Walker, Edinburgh

NHS Lothian is in good health

I NOTE with interest your article "Query as NHS staff off sick" (News, January 8), in which you indicate demands have been made for an investigation into why hundreds of NHS Lothian staff are off sick. This is certainly news to us.

In fact NHS Lothian is the best performing health board in Scotland when it comes to managing long-term absence and we work very closely with our trades union colleagues to reduce our sickness absence levels.

Indeed, our short-term sickness absence figure is currently 2.57 per cent.

So far our joint commitment to reducing sickness absence has saved more than 4 million to invest in patient services.

I have the opportunity to work with some very talented and extremely committed staff and during the recent period of severe weather our staff went the extra mile to get to work to keep services going.

Alan M Boyter, director of human resources and organisational development, NHS Lothian