Letter: Trams end game

Published on Sunday 27 February 2011 16:11

We HAVE now reached the entirely predictable end game for the Edinburgh tram scheme. The Scottish Government is not going to stump up the £500,000 more needed for any hope of completion.

The City of Edinburgh Council is not going to get borrowing consent to raise the money, though they may be mad enough to trying to go ahead without sovereign debt guarantees. That thought should come between Edinburgh tax payers and their sleep. Even if Bill Gates threw a wobbler and gifted Tie the money, that would not get us out of it.

Even Blackadder's Baldrick would have discarded the "cunning plan" to use income from our excellent Lothian Buses to subsidise the trams, in an attempt to body swerve the European Union state aids prohibition. As soon as the bus fares are increased, First Bus and Stagecoach will be into Edinburgh like a shot. And they won't be shy of using the courts to prevent illegal subsidies by the Edinburgh taxpayer. It is almost certain in this circumstance that the combined bus/tram company will go bust.

The only way to salvage any value from the money already spent is to use the controlled access routes created to run express buses on. This will give a better, cheaper and more flexible service than the trams, and is what should have been done in the first place.

DAVID HOGG

Glanville Place,

Edinburgh