Letters: Alternative to tram project should be given the nod

In the Fifties I went to school on a trolleybus, but Britain's electric transport was superseded by the car and the diesel-driven bus for obvious reasons.

Edinburgh's one and only tram is costing us a fortune and what's more, it doesn't even move, thus making things more difficult for the buses.

And as far as I can gather, it probably won't ever move!

Both the trams project and the Scottish Parliament building are very expensive products of misplaced national pride.

My proposal for the tram lines in Princes Street is the installation of "Noddy" trains and a Ghost Train for children's entertainment.

At least a "Noddy" train might pay its way!

A Anderson, Saxe Coburg Street, Edinburgh

Wonder how eco warriors arrived

PRESUMABLY all of these eco-campaigners in Edinburgh to protest about climate change travelled from far and wide by car, bus, train and who knows even plane, all of which depend on oil to power them whether directly or indirectly, and at what cost in carbon terms.

I doubt that any one of them will have thought about the rank hypocrisy of their actions.

Stewart Geddes, Silverknowes Crescent, Edinburgh

Welcome from city was first class

MY husband and I visited Scotland for a holiday earlier this month.

I use a wheelchair and the facilities on offer and the assistance I received were second to none.

From the help in providing access to the Fringe shows, the organisation involved in getting me to the Tattoo to the day spent at the National Museum of Flight really was quite exceptional. At no time did I feel like an "inconvenience", everyone did all they could to help without being at all patronising. My husband and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, we loved everything about Edinburgh and the people and will certainly be back.

Claire Williams, Sutton, Surrey

Street the council forgot all about

I DISCOVERED a council employee working to remove the moss between the paving stones in Charlotte Square.

The obvious point concerns the use of council resources at times like these on such a ridiculous task. But here in St Stephen Street, Stockbridge, the scruffiest corner of the New Town, this sight takes on a quite different meaning.

Here, weeds - not moss - flourish on both sides, and have done for months. They are all of a piece with the broken-up street surface and pavements, the filthy old litter bin - the only one - the rusty, bent railings, the tatty concrete lampposts from various, long-gone decades, the gutters untouched by street cleaners for weeks.

Contrast all this with the splendid refurbishment job done on nearby Arboretum Avenue, a road with no houses and few cars, since the planners blocked off its entrance to Stockbridge. If Edinburgh's residents are anxious to see how their city will be when public service cuts really start to bite, they need look no further than St Stephen Street, this fragment of the World Heritage site the council prefers to forget.

David Ellwood, St Stephen Street, Edinburgh

Labour oaf is now lording it about

FOR oafish hypocrisy, the noble Lord Prescott's attack on former Labour ministers agreeing to assist with various elements of the coalition's plans for improving life in the UK is world class.

He calls them "collaborators," seeing the governing parties - and by implication their supporters - as the enemy of Labour and its followers. That's some claim, coming from a former trade union shop steward and self-styled socialist pillar of the working class now literally "lording it" with the other "nobles" in Britain's most elite club outside of royalty. Robert Dow, Ormiston Road, Tranent