Letters: No orange appeal in city’s fancy plans for Royal Mile

At a time when council services across Edinburgh are being cut and/or curtailed, when bins are only being emptied fortnightly, leisure centres and libraries are being closed and the roads remain covered in potholes and so on.

I am sure orange cobbles on the Royal Mile will be the last thing that Edinburgh residents will want or be worrying about.

If this is the sort of thing that the taxpayers’ money in Edinburgh is being spent on at a time of economic hardship and recession then the Capital’s residents really have to ask themselves if their council is representing them properly and perhaps vote for change at the next election.

Taxpayers’ money could be put to much better use, and the following would be a start: put it towards schools, hospitals or cutting business rates for the shops on Princes Street and encouraging new businesses to come to the area.

Alastair Macintyre, Webster Place, Rosyth, Fife

New foodstore is utter madness

HAVE the council lost their minds allowing Lidl to even think of bringing a foodstore to an already congested main route out of the city (News, February 21)?

It will be impossible for delivery vans, trucks and cars to enter via the Wakefield Avenue entrance. It is already a dangerous road to cross for pedestrians.

Janet Wilson, Edinburgh

‘No’ campaign has little to offer

WHAT are the “No” campaigners offering the young and old people of this proud country?

As I see it, more austerity for years to come to pay for the past mistakes made by the last Labour administration, who took their eyes off the ball and cosied up to the bankers.

With the SNP six years on our country is still prospering, even with austerity measures in place. That says a lot about the SNP administration which has been working under these circumstances.

I just wonder what Ed Balls is thinking when he states he will not allow Scotland to automatically use sterling as our currency if Labour gain power. Does he not know that Scotland has backed his Labour Party for many years? He is now going to turn his back on this support if we vote Yes.

Tell us what the “No” campaigners are offering Scotland apart from: No, you can’t get EU status; No you won’t get into NATO.

This sounds like a very bad parent telling his children “Do as I say, or else”.

K Pollard, Grange Loan, Edinburgh

Knox school role takes a knock

I HAVE no views on religious assemblies in schools, but surely Donald Jack is mistaken that “John Knox was mainly responsible for the introduction of schools in Scotland” (Letters, February 23).

Firstly, three out of four of Scotland’s ancient universities – Aberdeen, St Andrews and Glasgow – were pre-Reformation, and their students either went to school or were tutored.

Secondly, “a school for every parish” was a worthy aspiration but certainly not achieved by John Knox. Very many remote parishes remained without a school. The hotchpotch of voluntary, charitable, Church of Scotland, Catholic and Episcopalian schools continued up until Victorian times when compulsory children’s education was introduced.

Thirdly, child labour, especially in a rural country like Scotland, was too important to encourage schooling. Robert Burns is a good example. He never went to school or university but picked up what learning he could. It took urbanisation and industrialisation to achieve universal schooling, three centuries after John Knox.

James Chisholm, Clifford Road, North Berwick, East Lothian

No-one to blame but the coalition

SO, for the first time since 1978, our train-wreck coalition government has lost Britain its precious AAA rating and we are now downgraded to a AA1 rating.

This has proved beyond doubt that they can no longer blame Labour for the mess we are in.

There is no denying that reckless, out-of-touch policies have made the mess inherited a bigger one.

Alan Lough, Boroughdales, Dunbar