Letter: Edinburgh tram project must go ahead

I read with rising dismay and incredulity that Edinburgh City Council is seriously considering scrapping the trams project, and has called for a report on the costs of cancellation as compared with the costs of completion (your report, 16 May).

While I do not wish to justify the incompetence that has brought the scheme to this position and do not doubt either that additional funding will prove necessary, I do think that there are significant non-monetary issues that the elected members of both the council and the Scottish Government need to think about before they wield the axe.

First and most obviously, if the scheme is cancelled, there will be no trams.

That may please some, but what are the long-term costs to the city's economy and environment of relying for decades to come on motorised transport, with all the clutter of traffic congestion and parking problems which make the city centre increasingly difficult to visit?

It seems astonishing that, having spent virtually all the original budget and put up with all the disturbance, Edinburgh's population might end up with nothing at all to show for it - surely the ultimate lose/lose scenario?

Secondly, will they consider the potential damage to the reputation of both the city and the country? It does not seem unreasonable for Scotland's capital city to aspire to start building a rapid transit system such as can be found in any number of large and medium-sized cities across Europe.

What sort of message does it send to the rest of the world if Edinburgh is seen as incapable of constructing a basic piece of infrastructure?

Following on from the tenfold increase in costs of the Scottish Parliament building and the implosion at RBS, the Scottish reputation for competence and financial probity is already looking tattered.

The SNP has consistently set its face against any government support for the project.

But before the new Scottish Government throws the City of Edinburgh Council and its scheme to the winds, it would be well advised to consider the message that cancellation of the tram project would send to the rest of the world about what sort of country Scotland is.

Jim Knight

East Mains

Lauder

It would be an absolute tragedy if the Edinburgh trams are scrapped. From the outset, the great mistake was not employing experienced consulting engineers to run the whole project.

Had this been done, the tram network would have been completed by now, and most likely within budget. I have worked with consulting engineers on major projects throughout much of the world, without any significant problems. They know what they are doing, and know how to plan for every eventuality.

Trams - not buses - are the future. Indeed, most European countries already have them, or are currently installing them as fast as they can.

Modern, multi-unit trams are efficient, quiet, run on electricity instead of polluting fossil fuels, and carry far more passengers.

Without trams, we will be left far behind the rest of the developed world, and when the oil runs out, or becomes prohibitively expensive, we will literally be left out in the cold, with nothing but shank's pony!

Far too many people who want the trams scrapped harp back to the noisy, unreliable trams of 60 years ago, and have never experienced a modern tram. The world has moved on since then.

Alastair Maxwell-Irving

Blairlogie

Stirlingx