Tram travails

Regarding the proposal from the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) that the Edinburgh tram operator should take on tram infrastructure maintenance costs with immediate effect, this confirms that my longstanding assertion that CEC’S claim that the trams make a

profit is, in the words of President Trump, “fake news”.

The trams have made losses in excess of £20 million per year for each year of its existence. However, in effecting its Damascene conversion, CEC

have not gone far enough. The £8.5m annual charge would only cover the track maintenance and the half-life cycle renewals; it would not cover the subsidy paid by CEC for the concessionary fares

that the Scottish Government refused to pay, nor the access fees charged by Edinburgh Airport, nor the interest and capital repayments on the £276m of borrowings, which alone would amount to in excess of £15m.

So, yet again, CEC are only doing things by half by choosing only to charge enough money to plug the deficit in this year’s council budget. The stark reality is that they still have to find another £120m of savings in the coming five years, which would almost certainly drive them to levying these cost against the trams. This should rightly seal the fate of the proposed tram extension as there is no, or never will be, profits to fund such an extension.

This decision also raises the issue of how these losses would be accounted for. The way Transport for Edinburgh is set up suggests that the most realistic means of offsetting these costs in their consolidated accounts would be against Lothian Buses profits. If Lothian Buses is also to be burdened with the cost of the proposed tram “extension”, then this additional cost could truly break its back.

JOHN CARSON

Kirkliston Road, South Queensferry