Expansive praise
My wife and I were lucky enough to receive passes to cross the Queensferry Crossing on foot on Saturday. The whole experience was truly first class. Everything seemed to run smoothly from start to finish. Parking at the Aegon multi-storey car park at the Gyle was easy and stress free. Queues to get through security and for the buses to take us to the bridge were fairly short and fast moving. All the security staff, police and guides seemed happy and helpful and the walk over the bridge itself quite easy and interesting. The good weather was a bonus. Once we reached the Fife side, returning to the Gyle was just as easy as it was going to the bridge.
Our sincere thanks to all those responsible for the organisation of the bridge walks. The amount of planning that went into this must have been huge – well done to all of you.
DEREK TURNBULL Buckstone Crescent, Edinburgh Having just returned via Hermiston park and ride from an excellent organised walk across the Queensferry crossing I was disappointed to find no commemorative merchandise for sale. Where were the polo shirts, tee shirts, caps, key rings etc which I’m sure almost everyone who attended would have bought to commemorate their visit, thus allowing the organisers to donate a large sum of money to different charities? A marketing opportunity missed with a captive audience. LAURENCE DOONAN
Milton Bridge Glencorse, Penicuik It is hard to see the Queens ferry crossing as an endorsement of nationalism. it was designed and built by an international consortium, mostly from Chinese steel. James Duncan (Letters, 31 August) claims it as an SNP success, along with free care for the elderly. But free personal care was introduced by Henry Mcleish in response to a Royal Commission set up by Tony Blair in 1997. Its current implementation, under the SNP, cannot be said to be an untrammelled success. One hopes the teething problems of the new Crossing don’t last as long. HUGH PENNINGTON Carlton Place, Aberdeen Joyce Mcmillan’s angst over the Queensferry Crossing’s insufficiently offsetting greenhouse gas release in the UK, including Scotland, is quite unwarranted, since our CO2 output is trivial at less than 2 per cent of the global total (Perspective, 1 September).
Some believe we could set a “good example” to environmentally less-restrained nations and/or that “every little helps”.
These points might just have some moral and/or scientific justification, but, realistically, the vast expenditures of time, effort and money they need, with no real benefit, are mere “green tokenism” and would be much more usefully applied elsewhere, given our horrific national debts. The same considerations apply to much or most of our wellmeant “greenery”.
For example, would not education, health and even pothole repair be more realistically and usefully deserving targets for our limited resources? ISABEL & CHARLES
WARDROP Viewlands Road West, Perth