Letters: Generations to come will have to pay for tram folly

I'm no accountant or financial wizard but it must be beyond everyone's ken why or how contract defaults occur so easily with such a major project as this.

Who are these people who negotiated this contract and why do they appear to have been so inept?

Large contracts of this nature can be complex and a degree of flexibility regarding on going costs will have been included to take account of every fluctuating unpredictable material and labour costs, plus variations in unforeseen weather conditions. But for the city to be so far off the mark is totally unacceptable.

My great-grandchildren and perhaps their children will be paying off this debt on top of that already accrued nationally by successive governments. God help them!

Frank Ferri, Newhaven Main Street, Edinburgh

Hypocrites are looking after No1

WE can complain about the spending cuts all we want, but the government will simply close their ears and tell us it is unavoidable and totally necessary. Then these multi-millionaire hypocrites will go away to their expensive wines and caviar, limousines and private jets.

As long as they are all right, that's all that matters.

Alan Lough, Boroughdales, Dunbar

Leisure facilities row like turf war

SINCE November 2007, one council committee after another has called for better use of sports and leisure facilities in schools.

Progress towards a pilot, painfully slow to date, is now being stymied by the education convener, Councillor Marilyne MacLaren (School chiefs bid to blow whistle on sport pilot 'disaster', News, January 27).

Edinburgh Leisure's involvement in school buildings, currently limited to Queensferry High, is neither a pilot (it has been running for 12 years) nor a disaster. Such assertions are a smokescreen.

For most of us the worthy goal is to make better use of underused buildings and facilities for sport and recreation.

Councillor MacLaren's comments make it look as if she herself is immersed in a turf war and having difficulty engaging in constructive problem solving with headteachers and Edinburgh Leisure.

Cameron Rose, councillor for Southside and Newington

Don't bank on Tories for help

HAVING a bank account is something most people take for granted, but there are more than 1.5 million adults in the UK who live in households that don't have access to one.

As a result they struggle to get work because employers only pay wages into accounts. They also pay more for things like fuel bills. This is a real barrier to people escaping poverty.

That's why I raised the issue in the House of Commons when I led a debate on basic bank accounts. These accounts don't have overdraft facilities and were introduced by Labour in 2003.

Since then the number of people without a bank account has been halved, but there is still lots of work to be done.

I argued that the government should encourage banks to relax their currently excessive ID requirements and make opening a basic bank account a legal right. I was thus disappointed to hear the Tory City Minister Mark Hoban reply saying that he did "not want to get bogged down in what banks should or should not do". This is the wrong attitude to take.

Sheila Gilmore MP

English forests are fair game

I BELIEVE it is an excellent idea to sell off England's forests and woodlands. The English will be so busy trying to protect them that it may help stop them from coming north of the Border and using ours as private recreational sporting grounds as they have done for the past couple of hundred years.

Nigel Nisbet, Moat Drive, Edinburgh