Letters: Public control is only way to ground money-grabbers

So, easyJet tells us it didn't ask for BAA's £1 drop-off charge at the airport but "stopped short" of criticising the plans (EasyJet says it didn't ask for £1 charge, News, August 6).

Is anyone surprised by such tacit support from another organisation with the same charge for everything culture?

Unsurprisingly there has been no answer to my previous question of how the council has allowed a private company to charge for using a public thoroughfare? When did the road through the airport come under the ownership of BAA? Answers please.

This drop-off charge is tantamount to highway robbery. The actions of an organisation which is a law unto itself, abusing a monopoly position and aided and abetted by a failing council which should be protecting public interest, but refuses to do so.

Since the air industry lost its right to sell duty free the travelling public has been assaulted every which way to pay for it.

Does anyone now doubt that privatising public airports into private monopolies was just a policy based on commercial exploitation of the travelling public to profit private interests? Aren't we being completely ripped-off here?

Isn't it long overdue for us to rein in the short haul air travel industry and promote investment into surface travel using environmentally friendly and sustainable power? Shouldn't air travel hubs be brought back into public ownership?

Jim Taylor, The Murrays Brae, Edinburgh

Waste of space council fails again

After 14 months of the cleansing dispute, the situation has hardly moved forward. The latest rejection by the bin men only confirms that view (Blow for council as pay row bin men back more action, News, August 14). What it does highlight though is the complete ineptitude of those councillors and management involved.

Could they explain to the public what they intend to do now to resolve this dispute? Perhaps they could employ a team of highly paid consultants. This is this administration's normal tactic – employ yet more people because the task is beyond their abilities. Is there anyone in Edinburgh council capable of resolving the disputes they have got themselves into?

David Black Kenmure Avenue ,Edinburgh

Spirit of giving isn't appreciated

Why is it so hard to give away articles to charity these days?

I recently had the unenviable task of clearing an old friend's house.

For the last eight weeks I have been phoning charity organisations, hospices, nursing homes and children's homes to come and take what they want, all to no avail.

A few of them arrived, only to tell me that the articles were either too old, or did not comply with regulations because furniture has too be fireproof, and electrical goods have to have the correct cable.

There are currently three bags of "bric-a-brac" lying in my garden waiting to be collected, but the charity concerned never showed up.

I even enquired about selling the furniture in an auction room, but was told it would cost 300 just to transport it.

What a crazy world.

Mr B Hayward, Carrick Knowe Loan

MSPs' posturing is just hot air

It was reported that Tony Abbot, the Australian opposition leader, had pledged to cut carbon emissions through tree planting and not by a carbon tax or carbon trading.

He then said, "What we will never do, though, is damage our economy with futile environmental gestures".

Contrast this with the posturing of Scottish politicians who trumpet "as the best in the world" a 42 per cent reduction on 1990 figures by 2025.

I suggest it is "a futile environmental gesture" which will ruin our economy.

Both Denmark and Germany have, despite thousands of wind turbines, dramatically increased their CO2 emissions and not been able to close one conventional power plant.

Windpower is a failed, highly subsidised and costly experiment.

Clark Cross, Springfield Road Linlithgow