Deadline for trams put back two years

Published on Saturday 5 June 2010 20:32

WARRING parties caught up in the ongoing row over delays to Edinburgh's tram project need to settle their differences as quickly as possible, business leaders said last night after it emerged the deadline of 2012 would not be met..

A revised timetable is expected to be presented to councillors later this month conceding that the project – Scotland's biggest infrastructure project – would not be finished until nearly 2014.

Council-owned company Transport Initiative Edinburgh is preparing to admit that an ongoing dispute with contractors is responsible for the massive delays.

Lead contractor Bilfinger Berger, which has refused to start laying track on streets east of Haymarket due to a contractual dispute over design changes and costs, is now also believed to be reluctant to commence work on sections west of the area.

Graham Bell, the spokesman for the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: "The whole situation is very difficult for businesses, residents and workers, and the delays to the project are highly undesirable.

"We call on all the parties to the dispute to get on with resolving their difficulties as soon as possible.

"We have spent a great deal of time running the Open for Business campaign to keep people visiting the city centre and we remain convinced that the businesses on the tram route will benefit when it is completed as that will be where increased footfall will be. We're also seeing property developers already buying up premises on the route."

Gordon McKenzie, the council's transport convener, said: "Across the project we're looking for three per cent progress per month and getting less than one per cent. It's very disappointing.

"The progress is less than a third of what it should have been. As every month goes by, you can add a month to the eventual completion date. It's slipping back all the time."

McKenzie said Bilfinger Berger could start work while negotiations were carried out "in parallel".