Letters: Short-sighted councillors shouldn’t have sunk pool

Having travelled up from Leith to enjoy the splendour of the refurbished facilities, they found themselves not in the water but on a waiting list of at least two dozen people, who were there to enjoy the privilege of enjoying said facilities!

I appreciate that swimming and associated pastimes are enjoying a resurgence, because of the Olympic Games in London. However, can someone please explain why a perfectly good modern pool – designed for children – is lying dormant and abandoned at the foot of Leith Walk?

It would seem to me that despite the best efforts of Lord Coe and Miss Adlington, our local councillors are too short-sighted to see the bigger picture; and do not seem interested in the development of our youngsters.

Needless to say one very tearful youngster had to return to Leith and only look forlornly at Leith Water World.

Lynn Mitchell, Edinburgh

Bank charges will hit the low-paid

Regarding your article about banks proposing to make charges for accounts (News, August 15), have these people no shame or feeling of guilt?

Has the emotional part of their brains been removed and replaced with a cold, calculating, unemotional microchip?

The new Barclays bank chief Sir David Walker proposed these fees, blaming free banking as the major cause of the banking systems demise – not the banking crooks who paid themselves vulgar bonuses and took outrageous gambling decisions with our money.

Now the commission on banking charges set up by David Cameron is losing the plot and appears to be ignoring this brief, and supporting the advocates of banking fees and assisting them in passing the buck on to Joe Bloggs.

It’s totally outrageous. Am I to understand that if I have a bank account with say £1,000 in it, generating zero interest if any at all, they will they charge me a proposed £15 per month for the privilege of looking after it, in which case my account would be depleted by £180 per year and all gone in less than six years?

Since few of us are paid wages, salaries or pensions in cash nowadays and have no choice but to have our incomes processed by the banks, am I to have an account service fee applied for this service? That would further erode my already recession-hit pension income.

We can not allow the banks or this government to get away with this.

Frank Ferri, Newhaven Main Street, Edinburgh

Interdependence, not independence

On August 13 you printed contrasting letters on the independence issue by David Fiddimore and Charles Dennis.

The former turned me off with an unkindly reference to “an octogenarian Head of State based in England” which seemed to ignore the Queen’s strong Scottish connections.

Her mother was Scottish, and she spends many visits to Scotland, where she is highly regarded by all but a few dissidents. Chas Dennis correctly maintains there is no clear reason why we should have an independent Scotland.

In many respects we are interdependent, and this is how it should be, otherwise the whole of the UK would become ungovernable.

Those who hanker after separation do not care to reflect on the period 1939-45 when the whole nation came near to defeat by Nazi Germany.

Those of us who served in the forces of the Crown were united in defence of the whole nation, and members of the Commonwealth who came to our aid did not ask whether we were Scottish or English, and that is how it should have been.

Donald Jack, Summerside Place, Leith

Nothing funny in comic cancelling

So angry. Booked tickets two weeks ago for husband, myself and two friends to see Russell Kane on Saturday at the Assembly George Street. Received a phone call on Saturday at 5.20pm to say “Sorry, show cancelled. Russell not happy with acoustics. Show moved to Sunday.”

As he has been performing there since August 13, would have thought the acoustics would have been sorted out sooner. Won’t be booking anything else for Russell Kane. Too bad he let his fans down.

Margaret Love, The Murrays, Edinburgh