Labour demands heads of Dawe and Cardownie over trams fiasco

Published on Wednesday 29 June 2011 19:30

LABOUR today called for council leader Jenny Dawe and deputy Steve Cardownie to resign over the Capital's trams fiasco.

As councillors prepared to vote this evening on the future of the project, Labour accused the city's Liberal Democrat-SNP coalition of failing to provide political leadership on the issue and said both party leaders should quit.

A full meeting of the city council is being asked to choose whether to scrap the project at an estimated cost of 740 million, complete the route from the airport as far as Haymarket for 700m or take it to St Andrew Square for 773m.

At Holyrood, Edinburgh Northern and Leith Labour MSP Malcolm Chisholm quoted a letter sent by Transport Scotland to a constituent in which the Scottish Government's transport agency said: "Given the significant level of public investment to date, it would be unacceptable to leave the tram project unfinished."

At today's council meeting, the Lib Dems are set to back the St Andrew Square option, while Labour proposes going to Haymarket, but leaving the door open for extending it to St Andrew Square "once more information is confirmed about the risks and funding involved".

The SNP is calling for a referendum to let the people decide and group leader Cllr Cardownie said if that was defeated they would not back any other option, which means the fate of the project could lie in the hands of the Tories, who were meeting immediately before today's meeting to decide their position.

Cllr Cardownie said the SNP had been consistent in its opposition to the trams and had been proved right.

"I've said before that this project is Holyrood on wheels - the trouble is we haven't even seen the wheels yet."

But Labour transport spokeswoman Lesley Hinds called for Councillors Dawe and Cardownie to quit. She said a 2007 Audit Scotland report on the trams showed a project which was deliverable and robust.

"It was clearly not without problems, but with good management and political leadership I believe it was on course to being delivered. Since then the project has totally unravelled, and we are left with the mess before us today.

"I believe that there has been a real lack of political leadership with regards to the tram project. We have a council leader who has consistently sought to duck the issue."

Meanwhile, further evidence emerged of the confusion over the figures. Labour group leader Andrew Burns said he and his colleagues received a briefing from officials on Friday suggesting that the revenue cost of the Haymarket option - taking into account borrowing costs and operating loss - would be 10.9m a year, more than the 10.6m cost of going to St Andrew Square.

After he challenged the calculations, the officials yesterday produced fresh figures showing Haymarket would cost 9.5m compared with 10.5m for St Andrew Square.

Councillor Burns said: "The overall revenue impact of Haymarket is actually less than St. Andrew Square.

"If the original information hadn't been challenged, this would never have come to light.

"It's indicative of the way this whole process has been handled and underlines why many of us continue to be deeply sceptical about the costs quoted."