Interactive: 'Shocking' news about tram project's scary overheads

Do you worry about the safety of people cleaning their windows on the tram route or is it just nonsense?

Tell us your views by e-mail: [email protected]

or write to us at: Evening News, 108 Holyrood Road, Edinburgh, EH8 8AS

I WAS "shocked" by the revelation in the Evening News (4 March) that residents of properties adjacent to the tram line would, on the grounds of health and safety, need to apply for permission to clean their windows.

It made me think of other potential hazards and it seemed sensible to ban any "white elephants" near the tram route from raising their trunks above head height and to ban giraffes completely.

I am old enough to remember the extensive electric tram network that existed until its closure in 1956.

Can someone please tell me how it was able to operate through the densely populated tenement areas yet people were able to clean their windows, in some cases sitting out on their window sills, a far greater hazard than the overhead wires?

I look forward to the inauguration of the trams and to the development of a subsequent network.

In the meantime I wish TIE all the best in their endeavours and assure them that the oft-repeated mantra "the trams that nobody wants" is too sweeping a generalisation. I can't be the only one who thinks this way

Ian Ford, South Queensferry

TIE-d up in knots with criticism

WHY all the criticism of TIE about the tramway overhead wiring?

If there are risks, then TIE is absolutely correct to identify them, although I have never heard of a window cleaner meeting his death in the last 100 years. What would Gordon Burgess, chairman of the Leith Business Association, have said if the "risks" had been brought to public attention two days after the tram service started? TIE gets criticised if it does and criticised if it doesn't.

N Mackenzie, Grange Loan, Edinburgh

Dump grand plans and think of people

OVER Christmas, the council put out a road traffic order to start work on the controversial plan to redesign the junction between Lower Granton Road and Trinity Crescent. Meanwhile, at the other end of Lower Granton Road there are now routine car crashes on a dangerous stretch of road.

When the masterplan for redeveloping Granton Harbour was drawn up, it was widely recognised that local roads were not able to cope with the extra traffic from the thousands of new flats, supermarkets, colleges and so on that were proposed and so funding was agreed to re-align Lower Granton Road so that existing communities would not suffer from the new developments.

Over the years up went the supermarkets, the flats, the college and offices, not just in Granton, but also in Newhaven and Leith.

Just as predicted, the traffic levels increased, the roads and pavements became more dangerous and now accidents are common.

The council spent not one penny on better pedestrian facilities or safer roads, much less the improvements identified so that the roads could cope. Instead, straight after the election the new administration voted to cancel the realignment of Lower Granton Road and instead spend the money on improving the junction which will create even more and faster traffic.

With the council now borrowing 84 million to press ahead with yet more developments over in Leith Docks, which means thousands more cars, what will it take for this current administration to stop its obsession with cars, trams and grandiose projects and start to think about those of us who already live here?

When will they start to listen and implement their policies and commitments to reducing traffic instead of building more supermarkets?

They could start by honouring the 20-year-old commitments to finally do something about Lower Granton Road instead of using that money pandering to those inconvenienced by a set of traffic lights.

Allan Wilson, Lower Granton Road, Edinburgh

Muck-raking does no good for the UK

THE election sees the two "big" parties, Labour and the Tories, muck-raking as hard as they can to try to paint each other as worse instead of trying to address the issues that concern the voters.

Gordon Brown and David Cameron are like two boys in a playground trying to outdo each other. Not good for the UK, not good for anyone who cares about how we live.

Trevor Swistchew, Victor Park Terrace, Edinburgh