Croydon is the main suburb with good and rich tram network

“Think of trams as an urban development project rather than a transport scheme,” says Martin Wedderburn, Transport Planner and Associate for thinktank the Centre for London. “The physical permanence of the rails has a much bigger impact on developers and investors, especially in the UK where bus routes can be changed or withdrawn at such short notice.”

Yet while light-rail use in England is at record highs of 268 million journeys, the highest since records began in 1983, they make up fewer than 3.1 per cent of all public transport journeys in the UK, and Transport for London (TfL) has been accused by a Croydon councillor of putting trams at the “bottom of their priorities”. (In response, TfL pointed us to the London mayor’s transport strategy, which does mention boosting the Croydon network.)