PUT aside the issues I’ve written about in the past – the chopping down of trees in central Edinburgh to make way for Christmas tourist tat, the differences between the state of pavements in the areas where we pay our council taxes and those where the tourist dollar is king – this year’s Edinburgh Hogmanay debacle finally made national news. And not for good reasons.
As with a lot of places that have bent over for tourism – and where the balance has tipped away from what is good for the city and what is simply good for those making money from tourism – this year’s Hog-money extravaganza, organised by the city’s go-to trader in glitz Underbelly inc, shut off more of the city to its residents than ever before and even affected some trying to get to their own homes or get guests to their homes.
READ MORE: Edinburgh Hogmanay organisers criticised over home passes confusion
Folk don’t like being shut out of their own town so that the council can make an easy buck – especially when they see little or no benefit from that buck. May I suggest therefore that the tawdry bad-taste NY splurge be renamed Hog-Money and the city council services simply call themselves Crawling-to-Underbelly Services…
Amanda Baker
Edinburgh
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