Letters: Piglets should have been put on the menu for lunch

It would have been much better if they had been sent for humane slaughter and then fed to staff and visitors – and especially good for the education of the zoo's younger visitors who so rarely get to make a tangible connection between animal and bacon sandwich in these days of pre-packaged supermarket fare.

Your report stated that more pigs were likely to be culled by the zoo so I hope that I will soon be able to enjoy home reared pork in the zoo's own Mansion House restaurant (when it re-opens).

John Eoin Douglas, Spey Terrace, Edinburgh

Trams will create a ghost town

ISN'T it about time the people of Edinburgh had some say in what is happening in the city regarding the trams project?

We have an excellent bus service, why have it subsidise a "white elephant"?

Can anyone tell us where the tram is really going? I think there should be petitions taken up by the citizens of Edinburgh to scrap the trams before it makes the Capital a ghost town, because once the people have been going to other places to go shopping, it is very difficult to get them back.

Let's do something about the trams before it is too late.

JL Clark, Manse Street, Edinburgh

Make building houses a priority

THE UK Government's savage cuts to the Scottish budget will have a destructive impact on jobs and services.

We believe next month's Scottish budget represents a golden opportunity to stimulate economic growth and employment.

Investing in a national house-building programme would not only provide the current Scottish Parliament with a fitting legacy, it would also introduce vision and fairness into handling the economic crisis – fairness that the UK Government has only paid lip-service to in its blatant and empty rhetoric.

Scottish housing provision accounts for up to 14 per cent of GDP and supports over 100,000 jobs. Each 100 million of public housing investment is reckoned to support more than 2000 jobs.

But news of above average cuts in social housing investment in England is alarming. If Scotland has to follow suit, this would directly impact on new affordable rented homes and have a drastic impact on private sector-led development.

Maintaining public sector capital expenditure levels is the only way of steering Scotland away from economic disaster. Without a building programme, we will face the combustible mix of fewer affordable homes and many, many more people in need of one.

The Scottish Parliament is not powerless to act. We need to build more homes, protect and refurbish the ones we have and make housing a priority.'

Graeme Brown, Director, Shelter Scotland, South Charlotte Street, Edinburgh

Hard to defend mammoth cuts

THE Strategic Defence and Security Review will see 25 per cent of Scotland's uniformed service posts being cut, from 12,000 to 9,000, compared with a cut of 9.5 per cent for the UK as a whole.

The loss of the RAF bases and the closure of Craigiehall, would be a disaster for defence in Scotland and for defence dependent Moray in particular.

Scotland has already endured mammoth defence cuts under Labour, and these have been compounded by the decisions announced by the Prime Minister.

Since the last defence review in 1997 there have been more than 10,000 defence job losses in Scotland and there has been a defence under-spend of more than 5.6 billion.

These further cuts will have devastating social and economic consequences.

Alex Orr, Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh