Cycle lane reverse gear is an inspiration - your views

Cycle lane reverse gear is an inspiration

With great admiration I read that the borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London has decided to remove the recently imposed separated cycle lane from Kensington High Street, seven weeks after it was installed, in response to objections from residents.

Three cheers for a Burgh council that listens to and acts upon the requests of Its residents. A lesson to be learned for Edinburgh Council, perhaps?

Mr Clark, Lochend Park View, Edinburgh.

Independent Scots can buy own vaccine

Michael Upton (Letters, December 1) asks where an independent Scotland would get coronavirus vaccine from, implying that it would be incapable of obtaining any.

I would suggest Scotland would probably do what Denmark and Ireland and a hundred other countries do, and place orders with manufacturers of successful vaccines.

After all, the UK government has already boasted of ordering 100 million doses of two different vaccines from America, plus millions of the Oxford vaccine.

The UK is not the only supplier that Scotland could use for this and many other services, especially when we are back in the EU.

James Duncan, Rattray Grove, Edinburgh.

No strings attached to charitable giving

As part of support for debt advice services, The Scottish Government has given funding to Christians Against Poverty (CAP).

CAP is an evangelical organisation which expressly works to “relieve poverty and advance the Christian faith.”

This proselytising zeal has already got them kicked out of umbrella group Advice UK. In 2011 it judged the ‘emotional fee’ of CAP asking vulnerable clients to pray whist offering debt advice was unacceptable and incompatible with the ‘Faith Covenant’ which requires that they "serve equally …. without proselytising".

The National Secular Society has written to The Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government about the conditions attached to this funding. We await her reply.

Religious groups are of course free to try independently to recruit fellow adults, but when they are in the homes of service users and in receipt of tax payers’ money, they must respect appropriate boundaries.

Neil Barber. Edinburgh Secular Society, Saughtonhall Drive

Vaccine refuseniks do so at their own risk

Once vaccines are available, what's the advantage in banning folk from pubs etc if they are not vaccinated? Those inside who have been vaccinated are safe and the vaccine refuseniks do so at their own risk.

Aside from the waste of taxpayers money setting the scheme up, with entertainment venues in so much financial trouble already, the expense and bureaucracy involved in policing a de facto identity card system just to keep punters away could be the final nail in their coffins.

Barry Tighe, Woodford Green, London.

Nicola’s Christmas gift of pass the parcel

Santa has come early this year. She (for it is ‘she’) is showering various groups - NHS workers, families with children on free school meals - with money.

Perhaps it is from the £1 billion that the Fraser of Allander Institute identified as being unaccounted for or the £8.2 billion Covid money sent to Scotland, both from the UK Chancellor.

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.