Covid testing fears as leisure centre opens - your views

" We would ask why the testing facility has not been relocated as the centre reopens”

Covid testing fears as leisure centre opens

We are concerned about the safety of situating a walk through Covid-19 testing centre in the car park at Ainslie Park Leisure Centre.

The centre is due to re-open on 26 April, which represents a significant boost for health and wellbeing of the community and an important return to sport for community clubs and especially young people.

The testing centre takes up a large part of the car park and is accessed by car and on foot from one narrow road. In addition, there are large delivery lorries entering and exiting.

There is one footpath from the street on only one side leading to the centre, where users will be entering and exiting and queuing, socially distanced, to wait for their allotted entry time. The car park is completely full and operates on a one in one out basis at peak times.

We would ask why the testing facility has not been relocated when access to the site is restricted due to its layout and the centre is heavily used by many user groups, the general public, local people and families and children travelling there alone on foot.

In addition, the car park is used by Spartans Football Club as well as the leisure centre. We are very concerned that this issue, which is a matter of public safety, has simply been overlooked and that the safe return of sport has not been prioritised

We understand that the licence for the centre was granted for an initial period of three months and would appeal for the licence not to be extended on the grounds of public safety as a minimum.

Jennifer MacLeod, Pools convenor and Covid lead, Warrender Baths Club.

Politicians come and go but indy stays

While the 2019 UK election result, with Boris becoming Prime Minister, was perfect for Scottish Independence seekers, and Nicola takes tedious delight in using his name as often as possible, voters should take care with short-termism.

Five years from now, probably less, Boris and Nicola will be history and we may well have a centrist UK government in place.

Compare this with the mayhem that is likely if independence were achieved, with the SNP raison d'etre satisfied and the resulting disintegration into its factions. The current SNP discontent would look like a Sunday school picnic in comparison.

"Once in a generation" of less than ten years is unlikely to be offered to those seeking unification by the fledgling government if it fails.

Callum Towns, Edinburgh.

Civil servants can’t serve two masters

It is shocking to learn that there were and are now civil servants who are working for commerce outside the service while still in the pay of the government.

We are used to MPs having other employments and pensions paid for while on the parliamentary payroll and pension scheme, but senior civil servants have more security of employment and a much better pension scheme without having to look beyond.

If anyone employed in the real world were to be working for a competitor to the employer that is paying their pension contributions they would be sacked on the spot, without notice.

You can’t have two masters.

Sue Doughty, Reading, Berks.

In the picture:

The picture above of the spring daffodils display at Northfield Doo’cot and House, Prestonpans in East Lothian was taken by reader Richard Herkes. The 16th-century beehive doo’cot in the former grounds of Northfield House, like the house, is also a Category A listed building