Readers' Best comments

Private contractors brought in to keep the streets clear during the long-running bin dispute have cost 5.4 million. Rubbish, you cry.

I hope these workers who were part of the industrial action are proud. Making the council fork out all that money at a time of financial hardship where many non-statutory groups are losing their funding!

Chirpy Council Worker,

"City leader Jenny Dawe today insisted that the cost to the council had been relatively small." And yet the net cost of 3.1m if applied to other services, such as education, would have meant that virtually no cuts would have been required.

Sarah B

That's hardly accurate: the sum paid to private contractors was far less than the amount of money they would have had to continue to pay if they had acceded to the unions' requests not to downgrade (or "modernise") staff pay. This is why they can call it a "saving".

Vandala

From dustcarts to trams: fines of 1 million a month will hit the firms building Edinburgh's tram line if they miss a new completion deadline of June 2012.

What fine shall we give TIE for the industrial vandalism of Edinburgh?

cammyburns

How can you call digging a hole and putting up barriers tramworks. Surely there has to actually be some sort of work going on to constitute works?

Mince Pie Supper

Lots of holes have been dug – and councillors are looking into them, Mince Pie Supper. Probably wondering if any are deep enough to cover up the evidence of political incompetence.

Mallory

If someone decides to turn off the life support system for this tram line project and allows it to die the death it deserves can we not try to recoup some of the squandered money by informing visitors to come to Edinburgh for a mystery weekend to try to discover who caused this fiasco?

James (1)

1m a month to compensate for lost revenue. At a current bus fare of 1.20 that equates to 833,333 journeys a month – almost two trips for every man woman and child in Edinburgh. Even a fare of 5 would mean some 6,450 journeys every day of the month. Methinks someone may well be at it either in the compensation claim or in what the fares on this tram will be.

Nitpicking

Letting the subject ride into the sunset, new statistics show that one in every seven hospital beds in the Lothians is taken up by a patient who is ill as a result of alcohol abuse.

If alcohol abuse is the reason they end up in hospital, they should be turned around and sent home to suffer the consequences.

JamboMowg

Why should they be? How about if YOU ended up with some ailment that was deemed to be partly your fault?

Alternative (High-Octane) Fuel Head

Finally, newfound footage shows Hollywood star Kevin McKidd treading the streets as a ghost tour guide.

Top 5 movies he wants to remake: 5) The Blair Witchery Tours Project; 4) The Karate McKidd; 3) Kevin Almighty; 2) Ghost; 1) Snow White and the Kevin Dwarfs

Mince Pie Supper

Now feeling dopey – bye!