Plans to bring the tram to Sutton High Street may be new, but the streetcar is no stranger to the borough’s roads.

More than a century ago, in 1906, the first tram paraded through Westmead Road, in Carshalton, where the tram depot was located, surrounded by onlookers.

Recently, residents who witnessed trams and trolley buses going around Sutton until the late 50s, reminisced about the old trams for a celebratory booklet of Sutton’s transport history, Memories of cycling and transport in Sutton.

Christine Dodge said: “I can remember the old fashioned trams but I'm nearly 70 so it’s not surprising. We used to have awful smog in those days. We didn't have a car so wherever we went we had to use trams or buses."

Another resident, Keith Vaughan, remembered how much of a nuisance the tram tracks were for cyclists.

“At the time the trams stopped we thought it was a good thing because when we were riding our bikes the wheels would get caught in the tracks. Now I think it was a mistake,” he said.

In the mid-thirties trams started being replaced by trolley buses, which ran without a rail line. The first route to be replaced was the 654, in 1935, which went through Benhill Avenue, in the centre of Sutton.

Hilda Reynolds said: “Trams didn't turn round, they just went from one end of the other and the driver would change ends."

The trolley bus 654 was then replaced by motor buses in 1959 and renumbered 154, putting an end to electric public transport through the streets of Sutton.

• Do you remember the trams in Sutton? Let us know by email here, phone the newsdesk on 020 8330 9555 or leave a comment below.