Letter: True cost of trams

Your article, "Foreign cash may bail out trams" (6 July), raises issues of financing that the City of Edinburgh should treat with caution.

As a council with the status of never being allowed to go bust it is indeed an attractive proposition for banks and other funding organisations. The ultimate payers of last resort are the council tax payers themselves.

Unfortunately, by the time this guarantee is called, our city will have had an administrator appointed which, like Aberdeen in recent experience, will push through even more draconian cuts to our public services and sell off non-core assets.

The issue is not one of where the money comes from but one of our ability to pay it back.

With a meagre surplus predicted that takes no account of interest payments and the life cycle fund for renewal of the tram system, this surplus would disappear.

Without these surpluses there can be no commercial borrowing. Put simply, if you mortgage your house you need an income to fund the monthly payments.

John R T Carson

Kirkliston Road

South Queensferry

This week I flew back from the south without any pre-arranged transport. The flight was on time and, when we came out of the main exit, there was a Lothian Bus boarding passengers, we decided to make use of it.

There was plenty of good space for luggage and everyone was able to park their belongings with no difficulty. As soon as it was loaded the bus set off and proceeded toward Edinburgh at a good pace. There were several pre-arranged stops on the way and a few passengers left the bus at some of these.

We chose to get out at Haymarket and were able to find a taxi at once. The result was the we were home in well under an hour and in good comfort.

Had we had to use a tram, most of the stops would not have been available, and it is likely that we would have had greater difficulty with our luggage. Certainly several of our fellow passengers would have been inconvenienced by not having the stops available they used.

Had we gone to Waverley Bridge, we would have been able to walk straight into the station, the destination of many of our fellow passengers. With a tram, we would have had to walk from beyond Hanover Street or from St Andrew Square - very much less convenient.

I have had consistent doubts about the wisdom of switching to a tram service. Take a trip on the excellent airport bus and have these doubts confirmed

J R Hall

Colinton Grove

Edinburgh