Success on track?

Is it too early for an extension to the Edinburgh Trams Project to even be considered?

The decision by Edinburgh Council to invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in a report to look at the matter will raise some eyebrows (your report, 6 December).

Yet it would be wrong simply to be negative and say that not just fingers but arms have been burned in the past, and acclaim that the local authority seems to have learned nothing!

A more positive line would be that there appears here to be a feasible prospect of the extension to Leith and onward being achieved without major embarrassment. There seems to be a chance here that genuine co-operation between public and private sectors can mean an enormous gain for the city’s transport network and infrastructure.

The developments at the St James Centre and elsewhere provide opportunities that should not be missed.

The extension ought to be less controversial than the main project for a simple reason: there ought not be any of the political friction over finance which almost brought down the minority SNP administration in 2007.

It ought now to be simply a matter for the council to determine. That will best be achieved if the authority’s chief executive, and not some arm’s length body, is given the freedom to see the plan to fruition.

Bob Taylor

Shiel Court

Glenrothes