Readers' letters: Council confusion over care homes

"They are not there for a holiday, this is their home and may have been for many years”

Council confusion over care homes

What is happening to Edinburgh? This council is slowly destroying the city and now they are attacking our elderly who reside in care homes.

Do they think their crazy schemes through? Residents in care homes are there for a reason, and that is they need "special care", which their families can no longer provide.

They are not there for a holiday, this is their home and may have been for many years, yet the council thinks it's OK to cause upheaval and confusion by trying to move them - another way of CEC not supporting its residents and shutting its eyes to people in need. Remember, age affects us all.

Beck Fox, Edinburgh.

Raab is naive about Afghanistan aid

As an insult to over 450 British war dead and the thousands more maimed in the Afghan war, it is hard to beat. Our desperately naïve foreign secretary Dominic Raab has announced that we are going to increase our foreign aid to Afghanistan.

He claims that we will manage to keep the money out of the hands of the monstrous Taliban who now control the country. And every penny of this money will be borrowed by the British government and added to our national debt. Incredible.

Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife.

Alcohol deaths are grimly predictable

There was something grimly predictable about the news that Scotland’s deaths from alcohol have reached the highest ever level and, ironically, in the wake of raised prices.

Many warned that by raising unit price the addicted and less well-off would simply find a cheaper source, no matter how harmful, and another way had to be found to tackle the problem.

Cutting alcohol treat-ment budgets most certainly did not help, but the SNP ploughed ahead anyway, ignoring the warnings, pretty much as they did with the drugs scandal.

So alcohol-related record deaths can join the grim total of record drug-related deaths, all under the stewardship of the SNP.

If that is them not being distracted and keeping their eyes on the ball, heaven help us when they start thinking about breaking up the UK again.

Alexander McKay, New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh.

What the numbers mean for indyref

Elections deal with support for parties, referendums with support for ideas.

In last May's elections the pro-Union parties gathered 51.4 per cent of the popular vote. As even the SNP's own constitution requires a 66.6 per cent majority vote in a plenary session for a constitutional change (as independence would require) one need look no further for SNP refusal to call another indyref.

Tim Flinn,Garvald, East Lothian.

Concrete concerns at tram extension

Progress on building Edinburgh's tram line extension to Newhaven could be slowed by a nationwide shortage of concrete and other materials, project chiefs have warned.

Cement, concrete, steel and other materials all create emissions in their manufacture and installation.

We should be told how many tons of additional greenhouse gas emissions have been and will be created by these tram works and how many years/decades it will take for them to be cancelled out.

Similar calculations should be done before Edinburgh Council's vanity projects are agreed.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.