Readers' Best comments

Parents face a hike for council-run childcare as the city revealed nursery prices would rise by up to 100 a month. There was a mixed reception online.

To put the price up 100 in one month is just ridiculous. I know people get help with childcare charges but you still have to budget. Good way to put people on the dole.

Xena – Warrior Princess, Edinburgh

What possible justification is there for council-run nurseries to be any cheaper than private ones? If they are cheaper, it means they are effectively being subsidised by the taxpayer which is wrong. The example provided, the Cowgate, should actually charge more than any private nursery because it clearly provides a better service.

rob hadnum

Then it all got a bit silly.

Why are these kids just swanning around in nurseries anyway? Send them out to work!

A Friend of Fernando Poo

The council could set up some sort of bartering system, whereby parents get a day's worth of nursery care for their kids in exchange for a few hours bin emptying duties, or something.

digestive biscuits V

Ending on a serious note . . .

So who believed that no council tax increase would not lead to increases in costs for services? What a shower. OK if you don't use any council services over and above standard. Extra waste uplift – extra money. Home care increased. Day care increased. You know the rest

abner doubleday, Haymarket

Rarely a day goes by without the trams getting a mention in these columns. This time, shops are to get a respite with barriers and restrictions removed around Shandwick Place.

What should happen next is that they should just finish off all the utility roadworks in town, properly re-surface all the roads which have been destroyed over the past three years by all the constant digging up and a concentrated effort made to get this city back to how it was before an army of half-witted idiots tried to force their ludicrous transport "vision" upon us all.

Euan, Edinburgh

A clear indication that if the trams ever run, the route will only be airport to Haymarket. Can only hope the Scottish Government claw back a large chunk of our 500m since TIE are only delivering a small part of what the money was expected to buy.

Old Cartha Boy

"Earlier this week, city council leader Jenny Dawe admitted she had not read the adjudications which have so far found in favour of Bilfinger and against TIE in three out of four disputed claims." No surprise there – after all, it appears that nobody bothered to read the contract in the first place.

Bring Back Poll Tax

Anthony Gormley's solitary wanderer sculpture has been installed on a pier near Ocean Terminal.

"He cuts a lonely figure, staring out over Leith Docks, but soon this solitary wanderer will be joined by five friends." The installation is to be called "waiting for a tram" and will be managed by TIE, who have predicted that major benefits will flow from the project. Early indications are that the cost over-runs will be "within a range that couldn't have been expected by a bunch of numpties.

Bring Back Poll Tax

Boom, and indeed, boom