BUSES reek of failure but trams are an altogether different thing.

When the last Newport tram rattled off into oblivion in 1938 thousands turned out to mourn its passing. I doubt if anyone would do that for the last bus late-night bus running to one of our less charming estates.

The Welsh Assembly's enterprise and learning committee thinks that having trams back in Newport, Cardiff and Swansea would be a good thing, and I agree.

Trams are fuel-efficient, eight of them able to run on the power that could be generated by one bus engine.

They also - and this is everywhere evident in Europe - bring life back into city centres with shops, offices, pubs tending to cluster at the centre where the tram lines converge.

Britain excels at tram technology and thus their introduction would be beneficial to our engineering sector but the clincher for me is that smacking of mitteleuropa and Graham Greene they are more romantic.

In the age of the internet, the days of large out-of-town shopping centres must surely be numbered leaving the possibility of inter-city spaces being reclaimed for nature.

Speaking personally, I would still run a car because my objection to public transport of all forms is that it only allows you to go where somebody else wants you to go and at a time of their choice.

Under cover of 'green taxation' car owners would be soaked but we are going to be anyway. It all comes down to choice; how me or anyone else wants to spend their money.

Odd that a good idea should come from the Welsh Assembly.

It proves the old saying that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.