Letters: Making a clean getaway through bikes on a tram

IT is good to hear that Edinburgh will follow Sheffield in trials of cycle carriage on its tram service. The Sheffield results to date have been the product of a lot of patient work by Pedalpushers, and have delivered a regular cyclists' special service.

In discussion in the Evening News letters pages, many have not grasped the concept that a less athletic rider will, like me, have a policy of using a cycle as little as possible when a viable public transport option will deliver in combination with a bike ride a fast and effective door-to-door trip without working up a massive sweat, and the fast and hassle-free way to deliver this.

Naturally the cleanest way to make a variety of trips is to take the bike on the tram, but with Edinburgh also considering options for a bike-sharing scheme and soon to celebrate ten years of car-sharing, the options to use the latter two new forms of public transport as a linked deal with the tram should also be planned for, providing a variety of choice.

Croydon Tramlink and other systems seem to manage the carriage of bikes, without the passenger revolt and a trail of destruction or delay.

Dave Holladay, Transportation Management Solutions, CTC – The UK National Cyclists' Organisation, Parklands, Railton Road, Guildford

Beware, your land could be next

I AM very concerned after reading your article "Lawyers clear way to build on park" (December 2) that Councillor MacLaren said on receiving legal advice that the council would not need to go to court to build on Portobello Park and that she was "extremely pleased to receive this advice" and that "it clarifies the extent of local authority power over the use of Common Good Land".

"IF" the council is able to use this legal opinion – mindful that it is only an opinion – to build on Portobello Park, it has serious implications for common good asses all over Scotland.

By not going to court to seek permission to build on the land, the council seems to think it can plunder the Common Good Fund as and when it likes.

I note there is no mention of compensation being made to the Common Good Fund for loss of part of its assets.

Should this be allowed to go ahead, then look out the Meadows, Inverleith, in fact every other community in Scotland – your land could be next.

D J Johnstone, Whitehill Cottage, Edinburgh

Filling gaps is Holy Grail for builders

UNLIKE the folk that have been extolling the plans for "Edinburgh Harbour" ("Leith"), I am horrified at all the in-building planned (The 700m quay to the future, Evening News, December 8).

Over the years, I have had visitors from many parts of the world, and their main praise for Edinburgh has been all the lovely planned open spaces. Not now! Any small piece of land is quickly used for profit – open spaces do not produce money and profit – the Holy Grail of present-day thinking from the powers that be.

With Princes Street now the tatty shopping area it is, and lovely stores like Jenners ruined by being turned into just another department store, I shudder to think what visitors will come here in the future.

(Mrs) J Macpherson, Carfrae Park, Edinburgh

Soap stars setting a bad example

LIKE thousands of other smokers I have had to stand outside the pub in the cold and rain to have a smoke. The government has "smoking can kill" on the outside of the cigarette packets. It also spends thousands of pounds having a Scottish Smoke Line, to help people stop smoking.

Now it is planning that shops that sell cigarettes are to ensure they are not to be seen from the other side of the counter.

I am all in favour of all this if at the end of the day it will prevent people from dying of cancer.

What I can't understand is that while all this is going on, the soap Emmerdale has two young actors smoking and this is on at 7pm with I am sure many young people watching. Surely in light of all the measures the Government is taking it should not be allowing this to happen?

John Connor, David Henderson Court, Dunfermline, Fife

Values of NHS have taken a bad turn

I SEE pregnant women are being urged to give birth at home to help ease the pressure on hospitals caused by the growing number of births (News, December 8).

What next? Stay in your own bed for a few months and hope that broken leg heals itself?

What on earth has happened to the values with which the NHS was created 60 years ago?

Mr A Morris, St Leonard's Lane, Edinburgh

No hurry to put a faulty boiler right

I CALLED the council as my combi boiler pressure had fallen. I was told that it cannot be sorted until December 19 as it is not classed as an emergency.

I am a pensioner and have my four-year-old granddaughter staying with me at present.

The council did send down two electric heaters on top of which I will have to use the immersion for hot water. This is going to send my electricity costs sky-high.

I cannot understand why it takes ten days to fix the boiler.

Pat Jones, Restalrig Crescent, Edinburgh