Your Views Online

The housing crisis debated, missing patient records and the Capital's tourist trade make it on to the online tour bus.

The Capital is a patchwork quilt for house sellers at the present time, with some areas of the city seeing average prices drop sharply. So it's a buyers' market it seems . . or is it?

It may be a buyers' market, but only for the more affluent. Mortgage lenders are not giving 100 per cent mortgages at the moment, and unless you have around £8k saved up as a first-time buyer, you can't get on the property market.
K.R

I am actually a solicitor and the figures are nowhere near as bad as they are made out to be. If you live in a strong area the demand is still strong! Furthermore, we can see new-build prices moving back to the bargain prices they used to be around seven years ago, which helps first-time buyers! Trust me, everything sells in the end.
The Landlord

What goes around comes around, and maybe we should have seen a downturn coming.

We are all suffering for our own greed and the "buy now, pay later" attitude we have had over the last ten years. Building societies and banks have caused some of the problems by lending us more than we can really afford.
Bob 2

Perhaps if ESPC told us how many properties they sell each week it would be more informative than "There are less properties selling and the same number coming on". I note that their motto "we sell a property every six minutes" has been quietly dropped from their website.
11+failed, the pans

It's tough in housing, and even tougher for those NHS patients whose records have gone missing on a computer memory stick.

Surely the original computer memory is on a hard disc in the original computer?
john3

Yes John, but those details are out there to be read by any member of the great unwashed who finds them. But here's regular poster Mario to the rescue!

I Have it. If you want it back you can have to give me £300bn! In all seriousness, IT security specialists should set about disabling USB stick access to personal data. I'm sure it started off as a grand and lovely project – allowing consultants access to such data from the comfort of their laptops. But the whole process needs to be reviewed. I will do it for £300bn!
The Genuine Mario Antoinette

I make that a cool £600bn coming Mario's way then. Not bad for a day's work.

And finally, Edinburgh's tourist trade cannot be taken for granted, said our columnist Gina Davidson.

Edinburgh is quite right to take charge of its own marketing. VisitScotland has had years to get it right. They'll never get it right or anywhere near it. VisitScotland is just a bottomless pit for other people's money, for which it has little regard.
subrosa

Gina Davidson rightly worries about the council scaling back services due to lack of budget. However, she misses the point of the "bed tax". The council gives significant grant aid to many of the festivals and also supports its own events. By putting the onus on accommodation providers through the "bed tax" this money could be transferred to other council services and the income from hotels ring-fenced for the festivals.
Tokai, Edinburgh