Sir – With reference to Peter Berry’s letter (January 24), reference trams in Oxford, I noticed a while ago that the tram network in, I believe Bordeaux, was mentioned. You only have to look at this example to notice that the city has boulevards and avenues very much wider than our roads and streets.

Perhaps we could knock the buildings down on one side of the complete proposed route, or maybe both sides where the road really wouldn’t accept side-by-side trams and the traffic passing either side.

If trams are to be workable, they need to move independently of other road traffic, otherwise there’s no point; sit on a bus in traffic or sit on a tram in traffic? Oxford is basically a city that has not undergone radical public infrastructure updating since before the ring road was started and that was the 1930s!

With such small roads, there’s only so much that can be done to modernise areas without transforming the skyline beyond what’s acceptable or allowable.

How about keeping everything within the old city wall boundary, levelling the suburbs and starting again. I, for one, certainly believe that this may be the only way to bring a decent tram system into the city and also alleviate for possibly a few hundred years at least, the traffic problem the majority of us face on a day-to-day basis. Please don’t make the council believe there’s any support for a survey which may cost thousands of pounds which would be better spent on worthwhile tangible schemes such as repairing the potholes.

The result of any survey I fear may only state what’s staring everyone in the face if only they’d bother opening their eyes to the truth.

Gary Brimson, Cowley