Readers' Letters: Edinburgh Council determined to waste Visitor Levy money

Alas, his successor, Stephen Jenkinson, is itching to continue the Arthur project for George Street, to enable us all to enjoy sitting out on benches in a fully pedestrianised area in February or to take our life in our hands dodging cyclists. Ian Swanson (“Edinburgh tourist tax to fund long-awaited revamp of George Street”, 21 January) recounts how the imminent tourist tax will be used to fund this. The accompanying illustration online shows a sparsely populated George Street with personal spacing reminiscent of Covid social distancing.

Are there not more pressing uses to which this money could be put? It could probably pay for filling all the potholes in Edinburgh. In any case, this is currently a matter of spending money we do not have. Why not build up a pot of visitors’ levies and then plan for its use? We know projected income does not always bring in the revenues planners had hoped for – the Scottish rate of income tax is a notorious case in point.

The restriction of vehicles in George Street will not favour the elderly and infirm who depend on taxis or friends to drop them off at shops or restaurants. And why on earth do already wide pavements in Frederick and Hanover streets need to be widened? What happened to Edinburgh’s “housing crisis”, much trumpeted a couple of years ago? Would the money not be better spent on alleviating that?

With Scott Arthur’s departure, some of us breathed a sigh of relief and thought this extravagant and ill-thought out scheme had been shelved for good. No such luck.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Give back

Ian Swanson’s article explains that over £30 million will be borrowed to pedestrianise and construct a super cycle way along Edinburgh’s George Street. The monies raised from the so called tourist tax will fund the borrowing costs.

l suggest that as an alternative the council uses the revenue from the tourist tax to offer Edinburgh council tax payers a rebate from their annual bill. During a cost-of-living crisis l am confident that the citizens of Edinburgh would see this as a genuine method of receiving compensation for the impact mass tourism has on the city’s residents and ensure the whole community benefits and not just those who have captured the active travel policy within the City Chambers.

K J Harvey, Edinburgh

M ere cracks

Far be it from me to defend Scotland’s top civil servant, but Brian Barbour’s claim that “everything is broken” in our governance surely goes too far (Letters, 21 January). His examples are all within the public sector; but that sector is reckoned to absorb “only” 52 per cent of Scotland’s GDP (incidentally, versus 44 per cent for the UK as a whole).

The other 48 per cent is clearly not broken as our GDP, while disappointing, has at least shown an upward ten-year trend despite the effects of Covid and Putin’s War; and the 52 per cent must generate many positives among all the admitted negatives.

So while much of Scotland (and Britain) is not working as it should, or not working at all as the latest ONS statistics worryingly show, it is reasonable to assert that Scotland as a whole is not broken, though aspects of both central and local governments certainly are and require genuine reforms. Whether our politicians, civil service and local authorities are up to the job remains to be seen.

Finally, we should all applaud the private sector, from family farms to SME’s to household names – it is they who really run the country!

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Respect SMEs

The recent article by Sara Thian on the SNP Budget (14 January) is spot on but misses several important factors.

While investment in major capital projects like Nigg, Grangemouth and the Shetland Spaceport development will produce important growth prospects they are not going to resolve the root problem of sluggish growth. The answer must surely be in providing more financial support to our local small businesses within communities and the entrepreneurs who are at the sharp end of increased costs.

These SME companies are extremely important to overall prospects for growth and should not be underestimated.

D McIntyre, Edinburgh

Chinese whispers

Donald Trump replied to a conciliatory letter from the Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre that: “considering your country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize I no longer feel an obligation to think purely about Peace”.

He argues that “Greenland is surrounded by Russian and Chinese warships” and the USA must "have it” to protect the West. In this he is supported by his Secretary of State for War, Pete Hegseth, who has refused to deny that the US has plans to take over Greenland – and Panama – by military force.

Ship movement data of the Davis Strait, the Labrador Sea, the Denmark Strait, the Baffin Strait, and indeed of the North Atlantic show no Russian and Chinese naval ships, while Greenland fishermen report that they never see vessels of any kind from those countries from their trawlers, either by binoculars or radar. Russia already has bases in the Arctic – why would it want to invade Greenland, especially as Vladimir Putin is tied up in a costly war with Ukraine? China is a south-east Asian power whose farthest flung northern outposts are actually south of Gretna Green. It is not an Arctic country like Canada, which Trump has also set his sights on.

William Loneskie, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire

Grand gestures

I see that someone has either woken up Donald Trump or that the initial word that the Chagos Islands were of little importance to the USA was not exactly correct!

That is, President Trump is now being saying that the UK deal with Mauritius is an act of downright stupidity, which comes rather late in the day with regard to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision.

This reflects the thoughts of most of us who followed this sorry saga from the beginning and has been reflected in the letters page of The Scotsman from time to time.

We can only assume that other land masses have loomed so large in the President’s thinking as to overshadow these small islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean and now those issues are more or less settled the great mind has room for the smaller issues that occupy the day of a great president (his words, not mine).

Unfortunately for the UK, Starmer has to demonstrate he is not to be bullied, and the Chagos Islands, in his mind perhaps, is rather a smaller issue than, say, Greenland, and to stand shoulder to shoulder with the EU on the larger issue of Greenland demonstrates his commitment to closer relations with the EU bloc.

Therefore, I suspect that the Chagos Islands deal has gone too far to be reneged upon without severe financial consequences for the UK, as the story will be spun. And of course, the USA were kept in the loop regarding the deal and it is rather late in the day for them to now realise the utter stupidity of it!

The moral of this story is that incoming UK governments should, on taking office, refrain from diving into issues that have profound, long-term financial and security issues for the UK that a new government cannot understand without some experience of walking and talking with the real powerbrokers of the world

In other words, a first term should be about consolidation and laying groundwork rather than grand gestures.

Fat chance of that, I think, but worth bearing in mind.

A Lewis, Coylton, Ayrshire

Labour pains

Is the Labour Party actually working in the interests of Britain?

Far too many really contentious issues are being enacted by a government few of us elected. Highly questionable foreign policy decisions loom large, such as the approval of the new Chinese embassy in London, the Chagos Islands deal, the recognition of a Palestinian state, policing a potential Ukraine peace deal, and so it goes on.

Even domestically most of us have lost count of the policy U-turns and queried the cancelling of local elections on flimsy grounds.

Surely there has to be a new general election held soon to restore our battered faith in democracy? Labour isn't working and nor is our entire system.

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Oats to a haggis?

Is REAL haggis still available? Even remembered? This ancient regular reader wonders because the expensively packaged “Scottish Butcher original UK’s No1 haggis” that I picked up from the local Co-op store contains oatmeal – possibly like all the other brands on the market nowadays.

Yet I remember, decades ago, an illustrious haggis-maker from Newhaven proclaiming again and again to all and sundry that “real haggis does not contain oatmeal!”

Anyone for Real Haggis again?

Jack Kellet, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

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