Lesley Hinds’ tram route dispute leaves city footing £1.4m bill

A STAND-OFF between city leaders which led to work on the tram project being suspended for eight days cost taxpayers more than £1 million, the Evening News can reveal.

New transport leader Lesley Hinds has been left red-faced after her call to halt the tram route at Haymarket – made last year when in opposition – led to soaring costs that the department she heads up now has to deal with.

The Labour politician – backed by the Conservatives – forced through a vote to cut the entire city centre section of the route in a move many believed was designed to embarrass their rivals.

The move was reversed just days later, however, after public outrage and threats by the Scottish Government to 
withhold funding. The city also faced paying contractors 
Bilfinger Berger a £161m 
cancellation charge.

Today it emerged that the city’s transport department was landed with a bill for nearly £1.4m as contractors downed tools last September.

Last autumn, the council 
suggested such a delay would have cost £300,000, but the actual figure has emerged for the first time in the council’s annual report on 
over-expenditure.

Critics today blasted the move as an act of “blatant politicking” after the overspend emerged at the finance committee last week.

Robert Aldridge, Liberal Democrat councillor and deputy transport leader prior to the local government elections in May, said: “That piece of blatant politicking by Lesley Hinds has left taxpayers having to foot this bill. At the time we did say any delay would cost the taxpayer heavily and the extent of this is now clear.”

Margo MacDonald, independent MSP for the Lothians, said Cllr Hinds may not have known the financial implications of the move, but said politicians had lost sight of the real issue.

She said: “Sometimes the politicians are only as good as the official’s advice and it’s possible Lesley Hinds was not well advised as to the implications of the vote. Having said that, I recall this was fraught with politics, and became entangled with electioneering rather than the best compromise for the tram’s eventual terminus.”

Colin Keir, the Nationalist MSP for Edinburgh West, said: “Labour and the Conservatives were playing stupid politics here and frankly there was no business case for Haymarket. It’s enough having half a tram line for £800m, let alone for one that leaves you having to get a bus from Haymarket to the city centre.”

“It’s all very well having an occasional political bun fight but it has to be kept in mind that it is the Edinburgh taxpayers who are paying for this.”

Lesley Hinds, a former Lord Provost, issued a strong denial to the claims. She said: “We [Labour] spent hours agonising over whether to vote for Haymarket or back the Liberal Democrats and borrow 
millions of pounds to take it to St Andrew Square.

“Frankly what the Liberal Democrats were proposing was unacceptable and the project was spiralling out of control, so we voted for Haymarket. It was nothing to do with politics.

“After the decision, John Swinney, who had said nothing about the matter for four years, suddenly announced they were going to pull the funding and we had no choice but to then vote for St Andrew Square.