JUST how nonsensical is the idea of creating an electric tramway running through the heart of Oxford?

The instinctive answer for many people is probably ‘100 per cent’.

However we at the Oxford Mail have seen a lot of madcap visions for our city come and go, and this isn’t the most harebrained by a long way.

Loyal readers may remember in 2014 when Ian Hudpseth, the leader of the county council no less (and he still is) said that his officers were looking into the idea of creating underground tunnels beneath the city for buses!

Some people might think that the same council’s Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods, currently being created in Cowley using giant wooden flower pots as roadblocks, are an equally stupid idea and arguably more dangerous.

Indeed, when Oxford City Council first announced its plans to create a Zero-Emissions Zone in the city centre, banning all but electric cars, bus companies, businesses and bystanders all jumped in to say that the first draft of the idea, at least, was unworkable nonsense.

Likewise, if someone had said as recently as 20 years ago that the Government of this country was going to ban the sale of all petrol and diesel vehicles, it just would have sounded stupid.

The world we live in now is so vastly, unpredictably different from that world, that it is almost unquestioned that petrol vehicles need to be banned.

As a result, all electric forms of transport – from electric buses to private electric cars – are now the subject of furious research and development by the biggest vehicle manufacturers on the planet.

What's more, there are already successful tramways operating in cities across the UK, and Oxford is a city that really does love public transport.

Look - we're not saying that we're going to put money on an electric tramway being created in Oxford in the next 10 years, we're just saying that these days, wouldn't bet against anything.