Letters: Merger will put Lothian Buses on the road to ruin

NOT only does it appear that the tram project is to be curtailed at St Andrew Square (News, 7 October), but the cost is to rise to a minimum of £600 million. This would represent a cost increase per kilometre more than four times that stated in 2003.

Edinburgh City Council has previously produced numerous tram "business cases", based on costs and development of assumptions which our director of finance has certified as robust. Each has been duly accepted, with the minimum of scrutiny, by our worthy councillors and proclaimed as "positive, good news", only to later disintegrate amongst spiralling costs and delays.

But tomorrow will be the day on which we can expect our "City Fathers" to reach new heights of fiscal bumbling. This is the day on which they will doubtless support the building of the tramline from Edinburgh Airport to St Andrew Square alone but, this time, in the absence of any reliable indication of timescale or costs.

Should the council try to terminate its contract with the infrastructure consortium for the construction of the remainder of the tramline to Newhaven, it will also raise the chances of expensive litigation. It is unlikely that any court would find in the council's favour.

However, the cherry on the cake will be formal appointment of Richard Jeffrey (TIE) and Ian Craig (Lothian Buses) to the Board of TEL, where they will join its chairman, David Mackay (latterly of TIE).

By what process of logic or wisdom, would one ever consider placing responsibility for our prized bus company in the hands of two heads of TIE, the company whose appalling performance on the tram project has led the scheme and, consequently, our city into such a monumental mess?

This merger will lay Lothian Buses open to the stripping of its assets and its only defence will be the raising of fares, the cutting of services and the deterioration of its fleet.

Ron Hastie, Silverknowes Neuk, Edinburgh

Move to country would benefit zoo

SOME new ideas are urgently required for a new Edinburgh Zoo.

Why not move to the country? I would like to suggest approaching Midlothian Council to move the zoo to Vogrie Country Park and create an eco-friendly open space zoological garden similar to Blair Drummond Safari Park.

A more visitor-friendly zoo in a beautiful, under-used estate with a flatter landscape, would be suitable for less able-bodied people who find the present site at Corstorphine difficult to access and walk around, denying the attraction more visitors. And there would be more room for parking.

There could be larger enclosures for the animals, including the Chinese pandas.

The Royal Zoological Society should be more adventurous. It would be a big investment, but long-term a great boost for the Society, the public and most of all, the creatures great and small.

Alan Robertson, Dykes Road, Penicuik

Let's hope war does not worsen

AS the public are made more aware of what actually happened, it does seem Scottish aid worker Linda Norgrove was killed by "friendly fire", so to speak.

It's bad enough and perhaps totally unjustified that troops are being lost on a regular basis, but we can only hope and pray that the loss of civilian life is not the start of a much more sinister side to a conflict which for all intent and purposes appears to going nowhere.

Angus McGregor, Albion Road, Edinburgh

Kind act helped make trip better

MID-MORNING on Saturday September 25, as a group of four tourists from Canada, we became very lost in Edinburgh and asked a woman for directions.

This kind and gracious woman got her car and guided us to the right road to St Andrews.

We missed our opportunity to give her our heartfelt thanks and would very much like to do this now.

Jim Mitchell, Patt's Place, Kincardine, Ontario, Canada