Readers' letters: Cycle lanes sabotage modern city life

"Out of a once wide and convenient boulevard the council has effectively created a narrow, no-stopping road.”

New road marking looking up Drum Brae North restrict traffic flow Drum Brae North Bus Stop

Cycle lanes sabotage modern city life

If you stand at the bottom of Drum Brae North by Queensferry Road looking up hill, you will see that both sides of the road are now double yellow lined and also are bollarded perhaps a metre in to create a pair of cycle lanes.

Out of a once wide and convenient boulevard the council has effectively created a narrow, no-stopping road.

You might then ask yourself: where does a friend park when visiting the residents of one of these homes? You might also wonder how a courier manages to deliver a parcel or where trades people park when doing work on one of these houses.

You might then ask yourself whether cycling and cycle lanes are so essential that in many places across Edinburgh modern life has to be sabotaged for them.

Otto Inglis, Crossgates, Fife.

It’s time for Cllr Ritchie to stand down

You report that Cllr Lewis Ritchie, who was elected to represent Leith Walk ward, has not yet decided whether he should stand again in the upcoming local election (News, July 8).

I am happy to help him make up his mind: given that for the last three years since he quit the SNP he has done little more than turn up to a full council meeting every six months so he doesn't lose his £18,000 annual salary as a councillor, some would argue his resignation is long overdue and he should stand down right now.

This would be apt now the St James Centre has opened. When his constituents worried about the impact of this massive development on local shops and traffic, he advised that we "should be pleased to have the biggest private investment in Scotland ever on our doorstep".

Harald Tobermann, Pilrig Street, Edinburgh.

Scots electricity consumers pay price

Clark Cross (letters, 15 July) misses the point made by Alan Brown MP over the penal charges made by Ofcom on Scotland’s renewables, as Scots electricity consumers are by the far the most financially discriminated against when it comes to the Westminster government’s charging scheme for electricity.

The UK Ofcom charges renewables from Scottish Highlands £7.36 per megawatt-hour (Mwh) and lowland Scotland £4.70 to connect to the grid. The figure in England is 49 pence per Mwh. The transmission charges for other western European countries range from zero to £1.36.

The UK nuclear subsidy is estimated to reach £30bn over the lifetime of Hinkley Point and this money would be better spent on home insulation and solar panels, while Tory cuts to support for Scottish renewable energy projects will hamper our economic future.

The current wholesale electricity price is £45 per Mwh, but the UK government has guaranteed EDF £92.50 for 35 years and The National Audit Office estimates the additional cost to electricity consumers (above the estimated market price) for nuclear power will be £50 billion.

Fraser Grant, Warrender Park Road, Edinburgh.

No excuse for louts

The behaviour of some England fans in London on Sunday was absolutely appalling. What has almost saddened me more though, is hearing people making excuses for this kind of despicable conduct by saying things like, “but these people have been locked in for 18 months” – as though that justifies bad behaviour.

Nobody was truly locked in, and even if they endured shielding or living with restrictions over the last year and a half, that is no excuse for the kind of unacceptable behaviour we witnessed.

Judi Martin, Aberdeenshire.