Letters: Shame on ‘experts’ who ignored taxpayers’ views

Steve Cardownie, a bitter opponent of the scheme from its outset, or so he would have us believe, now finds that he is doing the electorate and tax payers of Edinburgh a favour by voting for the trams on the basis that any line to St Andrew Square is preferable to a truncated one or indeed the third option, which appears to have been dismissed, of scrapping the project entirely.

What is it they say about empty vessels making the loudest noises?

There are no easy answers or solutions to this nightmare scenario and I don’t purport to have any, but then I’m not one of the elected officials who took it upon themselves to be self-proclaimed experts in this field.

Shame on them for dismissing the concerns of the majority of folk in Edinburgh.

Cindy Simpson, Moredun

No place to put a trams terminal

THE SNP have now jumped on to the wrong track. St Andrew Square is not an essential point of access to the city.

The heart of Edinburgh’s historic New Town is the wrong place for a tram terminal.

A Haymarket Yards site would make an ideal airport/tram/taxi/bus hub.

Haymarket has more space and greater need to develop and it has easy access to the south and west of the city.

This could take the development pressure off the historic city and improve retail and hotel prospects westwards.

Bill Baber, Grassmarket, Edinburgh

U-turn a betrayal of SNP’s voters

SO the SNP have decided to back the trams after all.

This is a betrayal of the people of Edinburgh who voted for them because they were anti-tram, although all they’ve ever done is refuse to vote by abstaining. In May we were being told that £370 million of the Scottish Government money had been spent (with very little to show for it).

Now, just a few months later, we’re told that £429m has been spent, again with very little to show for it.

I don’t think £1 billion will be enough to build the line to York Place.

Peter Chalmers, Farne Court, Kirkcaldy

Punish parents for grave horror

IT was appalling to read of how three eight-year-olds caused £20,000 damage by toppling over more than 50 gravestones at East Calder Cemetery in West Lothian (News, August 31).

I wonder where the parents responsible for these “little angels” were when they committed these mindless acts.

What will make the anguish of the relatives of those buried there even harder to take is that, as the representative of West Lothian Council said: “The responsibility for repairing or replacing the gravestones falls on the lair holder.”

What a pity the young hooligans responsible and their parents could not be made to make good what they have caused by restoring or replacing the stones.

That way they would be taught a valuable lesson which would prevent reoffending from occurring.

Kate Colquhoun, Northfield, Edinburgh

New homes vow must be kept

NEWS of a slump in new house building is of great concern. On the same day Scottish Government figures showed new house building plunged by 11 per cent, it was also revealed that 123,000 households across Scotland are still on waiting lists for a home.

At its root, the housing crisis facing people across Scotland is a crisis in the supply of new homes. That is why it is vital that the Scottish Government do not water down their manifesto commitment to build 6000 new socially-rented – council and housing association homes – every year of the new parliament.

Only then will the thousands of people stuck on housing waiting lists have any hope of a permanent home they can call their own.

Graeme Brown, Director, Shelter Scotland, South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh