Letters: Success of city's tram project will not be known for years

His letter (19 March) confirms that the SNP has consistently opposed the project on the grounds that it was the wrong way to solve Edinburgh's transport problems.

It will be many years after the trams have started running before anyone will be able to conclude that the trams have helped or hindered the public transport system in Edinburgh – so the SNP group will have to wait a long time before claiming it was correct to oppose the principle of investing in a tram network.

The construction chaos and cost escalation which we are now seeing in Edinburgh has nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of tram systems, but is simply a reflection of very poor decision-making by the city council, in allowing TIE to handle the project in the first place.

Sorry, Councillor Cardownie, but it is far too soon to be claiming the SNP was right to oppose the trams. Come back in 2020 and let's review the situation then!

Robert Drysdale, Primrose Bank Road, Edinburgh

Giant TV creates a buzz in the Capital

BEN Miller may not like the giant TV in Conference Square (Interactive, 22 March), however as someone who works there, I pop out every lunchtime for fresh air and I find it handy to catch up on the news headlines.

Last summer it provided a buzz during Andy Murray's Wimbledon campaign when large crowds gathered to watch every point. This year it will no doubt become an equally popular spot during the World Cup.

The council are often criticised for lacking initiative. This is one idea it had that has caught on and become a local landmark. Who knows, in 20 years' time there may be a television like it in every area.

Gavin Fleming, Webster's Land, Grassmarket, Edinburgh

Cleansing of the hive is overdue

ONE of the things I love about the Evening News is your unerring instinct to identify irony and hypocrisy in high places. Laura Cummings' focused article on the proposed Leith Docks biomass plant (22 March) identifies that local members of the city council fear that views from around the historic port would be ruined by the "blot on the landscape". . . and may oppose the planning application accordingly.

Why didn't the council employ exactly the same logic against the large and small bland boxes which will obscure the Old Town cityscape if the planned Caltongate Legoland (which, ludicrously, is still on the cards) goes ahead?

Our current crop of councillors are a disaster. They make the wrong choices almost by instinct – the phantom trams, road charging, the bin men debacle, delays on equal pay implementation and so on.

It is essential, at the next council election, that we campaign to vote them down as individuals (not political parties) and get rid of the lot.

A cleansing of the hive is long, long overdue.

David Fiddimore, Nether Craigwell, Calton Road, Edinburgh

Aiming to meet high standards

I READ with interest your article "no clean bill of health for ERI" on 17 March.

It's a shame that your reporter's glass is "half-empty". To date the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh has received one of the best health environment inspection reports so far across all of NHS Scotland.

While your report makes clear we knew about some of the wards to be visited – but not all – it doesn't make clear that there was an unannounced visit by the Inspectorate within two weeks of that first visit or that the actual wards visited during the announced visit were changed on the day of the visit.

We are not complacent. We are determined that all our hospitals will meet the standards that patients and the Inspectorate expect of us. We were delighted that the Inspectorate themselves said "the standard of hygiene was fine".

Your readers can be assured that we have already started work on the areas where improvement is required.

James McCaffery, chief operating officer, NHS Lothian

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