Holiday lets are even invading Edinburgh’s City Chambers – Helen Martin

WHEN AirBnB began, it seemed a good option for tourists on a tight budget to travel and stay with locals who made a few bob from their spare room.

Residents have complained about the effect that sites such as AirBnB are having on their communities.

Now it’s grown out of all proportion, angering neighbours, and boosting overtourism which is loathed by many locals and heritage organisations, especially when it comes to the Old Town.

The council continues to encourage more and more tourism but the worst action so far is their plan to make money out of leasing the west wing of the old City Chambers to a company turning it into even more holiday lets.

How about council flats, homeless accommodation, a market for city and regional produce and crafts, or anything that works for local people rather than more tourist ruination of the Old Town?

Learning to cook pizza and baked potatoes is not enough for kids

RESEARCH from the UK, France and Spain has delivered a warning that highly processed food, including ready meals, raises risks of cardiovascular disease, strokes, cancer and premature death.

In the UK, that accounts for 50 per cent of the food the public buys. There are now calls for more tax on processed foods – which won’t help.

The Office for National Statistics has found three out of four mothers now work. Perhaps that restricts cooking time or if shift work’s involved, non-cooking dads might have to supply pinged dinners.

But the biggest problem is the number of women now, as well as blokes, who don’t know how to cook from scratch starting with raw ingredients, instead buying toxic food with chemicals, preservatives, salt and sugar.

Some schools attempt cooking lessons, but many limit that to pizzas or baked potatoes rather than studies of nutrition, the “science” of food prep, stewing, baking etc and practical experience.

Isn’t a couple of hours of such school tuition a week, which does the best for kids, lowers disease rates, reduces NHS costs (and food bills) a better solution than extra tax?

Death threats don’t work

TWO councillors have been hit with death threats. There are several ways of opposing councillors from criticising their policies on social media to voting them out. But a death threat comes from a violent idiot who doesn’t realise how much we will all hate them – and support their elected “victim”.