Letters: Tram bosses haven't lined up stops in the right places

A tourist or business person arriving at Edinburgh Airport or a car driver using the Ingliston park and ride facility want to get to Edinburgh Park, Murrayfield Stadium, or Haymarket and or then Princes Street as quickly as possible.

Currently there are nine stops planned for the tram line between the airport and Haymarket alone. Have boards of TIE/TEL considered removing five or six of these other local stops?

The passenger numbers in TIE's business case for these local intervening stops are minimal in comparison, whereas passenger numbers are substantially greater for the local stops within the central Edinburgh area from Haymarket down to Leith.

Could funds be saved from omitting these local stops in west Edinburgh and applying to further advance the tram line down towards Leith?

Jim Brown, Telford Road, Edinburgh

'Cotton-wooling' starts at home

I FEEL compelled to respond to Helen Martin's "Avoiding risks is no education" piece (News, November 22).

Schools today offer an unbelievable array of activities both during and outwith the school day. In my short teaching career I have already taken pupils hillwalking, kayaking, horse riding, on the tube in London, trekking through India and much more. I have many colleagues who have made similar contributions to enriching the experience of our pupils.

Despite increasingly difficult legislation pertaining to risk assessment we still make these opportunities happen from our own goodwill, giving an incredible amount of time and very often contributing financially off our own backs.

I agree with Helen on the issue of the school ban on footballs. In my experience, however, any "cotton-wooling" is down to parents who rather than seeing the lifelong benefits of helping their child to develop resilience instead want teachers to molly-coddle and keep telling their youngsters, "There there. You don't have to do anything that's mildly difficult or uncomfortable if you don't want to."

Education begins at home.

J Warden, Edinburgh

CCTV doesn't get to root of crime

I FIND it very surprising that the new CCTV cameras at North Berwick are having any significant effect on the local street crime there ("Cameras aid war on crime", News, November 22).

This is contrary to evidence from elsewhere and from all the reputable research. Increased surveillance of the town's population will be doing nothing to deal with the causes of anti-social behaviour and to the underlying social issues.

I would recommend, therefore, that someone from East Lothian Council should as a priority contact Liverpool City Council concerning these matters. Liverpool, once the Asbo capital of the UK, has recently reduced its Asbo rate by an amazing 50 per cent, and is now a considerably safer city at night as a result.

And how did it achieve this? By a "joined-up" approach, involving community action, social inclusion and, crucially, working with the young people themselves and their families.

Street CCTV is just a crude and expensive technology, whose presence serves to make people feel safer when they're actually no safer at all. It also allows some councils and politicians to claim that at least they're doing something, however ineffective this may be.

It is time these people stopped wasting our money and started to deal with anti-social behaviour in a more responsible way.

Dr John Welford, Boat Green, Edinburgh

Council to blame for refuse mess

I WAS shocked to read about the council manager who issued threats to workers in the refuse collection service, on his Facebook page (News, November 5).

Councillors and council officials are ultimately responsible for this disgraceful behaviour - they have been trying to bully these workers into accepting wage cuts and worse conditions.

Michael Brownlie, Fidra Court, Edinburgh