Scrap the trams

Scrapping the Edinburgh tram project now (your report, 25 June) is not as mad as it sounds. If £375 million has been spent so far and the outcome is likely to be a total of £600m, if not very much more, abandoning the project now would save at the very least £225m at a time when public expenditure is under severe pressure.

Politicians have never hesitated to scrap defence projects and waste billions in so doing, so why should the tram project be any different? In fact, it suffers from one similarity to many defence projects, in that cost escalation has been aggravated by changes to the original scheme.

All of this bodes ill for the plans to reopen the Borders railway line, something that could only ever make sense if it was extended to Carlisle to provide a shorter alternative to the existing route for those travelling to the north-west of England.

DAVID WRAGG

Stoneyflatts

South Queensferry