Since when are doctors and buses only for the big cities?
HAD to laugh at the idea that Humza Yousaf (Mail) seems to wants us all to do our shopping by old-fashioned ‘sit-upand-beg’ bicycle with a wicker basket.
That might have been feasible in the Fifties when shops were local.
These days most of us need a car to get down a busy dual carriageway to an outof-town industrial estate where the big shops are.
When the Transport Minister is confronted by the fact that many Scots suffer ‘transport poverty’ and he starts talking about bicycles as a solution, it shows how hopeless the situation is.
I perhaps shouldn’t be surprised — after all, we have a First Minister who can’t drive but thinks the rest of us should all be in electric cars sooner than later. J. WILSON, Houston, Renfrewshire. TIME and again it is those of us outside the Central Belt who are worstserved by Holyrood, the parliament that was suposed to move government closer to the people. Health is an ongoing nightmare. No one who lives rurally expects to have an all-singing, all-dancing hospital on their doorstep, but is a decent GP service too much to ask? Older doctors are retiring en masse and newer ones seem to want bright lights and big cities. Instead of telling us how much is being spent on the NHS, can’t the Scottish Government change contracts so that GPs have to complete, say, five years, in a surgery chosen by the NHS before they take their new training and emigrate? Rural transport is also a problem that Holyrood fails to understand. Rail stations are few and far between and tickets are very expensive. Services are horribly unreliable, too. Bus timetables are a nightmare. I am forced to take two buses to get to my local hospital for regular appointments. There is no dedicated service and lots of standing at shelters in all weathers. Not everyone can afford a car and elderly people often have to give up driving. Are we rural people to be punished for where we live? Must we all move to Glasgow or Edinburgh to get decent services? Name and address supplied. AS usual the SNP government has only thoughts on the Central Belt and cities where transport policies are concerned. Transport Minister Humza Yousaf should see what living in a public transport impoverished environment is like, where journey times are horrendous and in many cases impossible due to limited timetables. Access to shopping centres and many places of work are certainly not within cycling distance. As usual the SNP is living in cloud cuckoo land.
ROY BROOKES, Jedburgh, Roxburghshire.