I READ with interest The Issue on May 20 regarding trams in Oxford.

Looking at the picture shown of the tram in Manchester, it shows tracks sunk flush into the road surface for the trams to travel along.

This would result in our city streets being dug up again, as if there hasn’t been enough disruption to the city roads in recent years.

There will need to be metal posts at regular intervals to carry the overhead electric cables from which the pantographs would receive the power to propel the trams.

What an awful impact such ugly paraphernalia would have on our beautiful city streets.

Such tracks could present a real danger to cyclists and the elderly when they cross these roads.

And where would the money come from to pay for such a scheme?

There isn’t enough money to repair our roads, let alone pursue an idiotic idea such as this.

It would seem that there is an element within the local authority which dreams up these ideas and tells us ‘this is what we are going to spend the taxpayers’ money on’, despite no debate or asking the taxpayers what their views are.

What is needed, in my humble opinion, is more and bigger park and rides on the city outskirts to stop cars coming right into Oxford, with a lower cost to the motorist to encourage them to use them.

We have an excellent bus service which most people in and around Oxford can use and the buses have very clean low emission engines.

We don’t need trams.

Spend the money on preserving bus services to isolated parts of Oxfordshire where almost each week one reads about a lifeline service being taken away.

MICHAEL CLARKE
Lewell Avenue
Old Marston, Oxford