Letters: High cost is enough to send city motorists parking mad

That will come as no surprise to any of the hard-pressed motorists who will be relieved of a sizeable chunk of their hard-earned cash today (as the saying goes, at least Dick Turpin had the decency to wear a mask).

It strikes me that ever since we all voted against the unfair and unworkable congestion charge our wonderful city council's attitude seems to have been not one iota for motorists, most of whom are also council tax payers.

The roads are in a truly abysmal state (I would say worse than a lot of Third World countries but for fear of being sued for slander by said Third World countries!) and the roads budget will I suspect like all other departments have to find savings given our perilous financial state, yet still the mandarins at the City Chambers press on with implementing an innovative and state of the art transport solution (otherwise known as the trams fiasco to many) with frenzied zeal.

Fact is, we have no transport/roads/parking strategy, unless "drivers, what drivers?" counts as a strategy. Time to wake up and smell the coffee I think!

David Johnston, John's Place, Edinburgh

Teachers not only ones facing cuts

HOW arrogant is the Capital headteacher (News, February 18) to threaten strike action and claim council penpushers' jobs are being protected at the expense of education?

Does he or she not realise every sector is facing Draconian cuts thanks to the mismanagement of the UK economy by successive governments?

There are just as many administration jobs in schools that could be cut, for example do they really need both a bursar and a business manager, not to mention the excessive numbers of principal teachers, each of whom could be replaced at the same cost by two young teachers actually working in the classrooms?

Teachers can have a difficult job, but the rest of us don't have feather-bedded privileges of extremely high salaries and generous holidays coupled with unrivalled job security.

Just because all politicians are scared to tackle teachers doesn't mean they should hold the rest of us to ransom.

Fraser Grant, Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh

Airport shows no regard for users

I AM fuming about the state of the drop-off zone in Edinburgh Airport when I was there on Sunday evening.

I waited a few minutes in a queue to drop off my brother, did so quickly and then waited in a traffic jam for about 30 minutes to leave the area.

It was a complete joke and an absolutely ridiculous situation.

When I finally got to the head of the queue to get out, there was one man slowly operating barriers to get out.

I think the gentleman carrying out the task could have managed to take 1 from each car on both barriers.It was a farce of a situation where the management showed a complete disregard and lack of respect for people using the airport.

There were no staff patrolling the car park at all, perhaps to avoid incurring the wrath of disgruntled people like me!

Can anyone remember a single occasion when you visited Edinburgh Airport and there were no members of staff making sure you did not outstay your time in the drop-off zone?

Sarah Devlin, Burntisland

Wrong time and place for work

IT is quite unbelievable that work was allowed to be carried out on the eastbound section of Princes Street on a busy Saturday afternoon.

Road down to one lane where there are four bus stops - chaos, with buses stopped for long periods of time.

All to repair cracking tram tracks that will probably never be used - it should have been done at night and certainly not at one of the busiest times of the week.

Graeme Robertson, Belgrave Terrace, Edinburgh