Letters: Non-polluting commuting will beat bottleneck blues

Every day thousands of vehicles pass through the Corstorphine bottleneck with its five sets of traffic lights and even the slightest obstruction causes traffic to tail back with engines running.

Next year the trams will be running and drivers will be able to leave their cars at the Ingliston park and ride and travel non-polluting commuting by tram into the city centre.

In addition the withdrawal of the Airlink 100 bus running every ten minutes each way will reduce diesel pollution.

The off-road tram line from Edinburgh Park to Stenhouse was originally designated to be the Corstorphine bypass and the land was cleared (as we can see today) but the road was never built, which the residents of Stenhouse and Broomhouse can be eternally grateful for.

George Ritchie, North Gyle Terrace Edinburgh

Housing shortage is a huge problem

There is no doubt that the chronic shortage of affordable housing in Scotland is becoming one of the most urgent social problems facing us.

At the heart of the issue is the major lack of social  housing.

But instead of politicians doing all they can to strengthen and increase social housing, they are picking apart the housing safety net – with UK welfare cuts compounded by the Scottish Government’s 41 per cent cut to the house building budget.

Even before these latest cuts, our research showed that it would take more than seven years to find a home for the 157,000 Scottish households on social housing waiting lists.

To end Scotland’s housing crisis for good, the Scottish Government needs to put much more money into social housing. Using the £350 million+ Barnett consequentials would be a welcome start but we need a renewed commitment to build at least 10,000 new social homes a year.

Investment in housing brings both social and economic benefits. It brings hope of a home to those on social housing waiting lists and much-needed jobs to the construction industry.

Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, Edinburgh

Gay marriage will not create decay

We wish the very best of luck to the marriage equality bill going through the UK parliament today.

Equalities Minister Maria Miller rightly tells Tory opponents of the bill that they are on the wrong side of history.

When we wake up on Wednesday morning I suspect that heterosexual married people will still be heterosexual and married. There will be no “undermining” of any of our relationships and none of the moral social decay so unfathomably feared and prophesied by some religious voices.

Neil Barber, Edinburgh Secular Society

Fighting against legal ‘corruption’

The announcement by David Cameron in Tripoli, with his Libyan counterpart Ali Zeidan, that officers from Dumfries and Galloway constabulary had been granted permission to visit the country and examine all files relating to the bombing of Pan Am fliight 103 over Lockerbie, looks like a thin excuse to try to find a loophole to vindicate bringing to trial Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah.

This new apparently puppet-regime of the western powers in Libya should be demanding that officers from Libya visit Scotland to examine all files relating to what was, in the eyes of many, and for all practical purposes, a “show trial” of two innocent Libyans.

It was well documented in the earliest days that the bombing was largely financed by Iran and carried out by Syrians. It was to Britain and America’s advantage to turn a blind eye to Iran’s involvement at the time because Iran sided with the so-called Allies in the Desert Storm offensive against Iraq. On the other hand, Libya’s Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi verbally supported Iraq.

However, if Cameron is allowed to use this ploy to pull the final curtain down on the Lockerbie trial, he will be doing a grave disservice to the victims of the bombing and to their families, and not least to the people in Scotland who are fighting to expose the deep-rooted corruption that permeates the Scottish legal system.

William Burns, Pennywell Road, Edinburgh