Leader: Milestone short of a champagne moment

Published on Tuesday 18 October 2011 00:15

EDINBURGH’S first tram has arrived at the Gogar depot at last – brand new, gleaming – and, all too predictably, two hours late.

Its appearance – nearer 1pm than the 11am scheduled arrival – could be taken as a metaphor for this jinxed project, if only the streets of Scotland’s capital were not already littered with metaphors and a good deal else besides.

To be fair, it was a very long and arduous journey. It began with manufacturer CAD in Irun, northern Spain, a long haul to Amsterdam, then on to a boat bound for Newcastle, then decanted on to the back of three flatbed lorries and driven up the A1.

Manoeuvring was awkward and the driving rain in Scotland hardly helpful. It fell to Jenny Dawe, leader of Edinburgh council, to lift the mood: “The delivery of the first tram to the depot”, she declared, “is an important milestone for the project. It illustrates how far we have come since mediation and the good progress that has been made in driving the project forward in such a short period of time.”

Few would recognise the project in those words. Was the thrill so intense? Had she bumped her head as the tram was being lifted off the lorry? Let’s not get too carried away and keep the Bollinger in the depot for now. There are 26 more trams still to arrive.

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SlyFifer

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 08:07 AM

Having arrived at the graveyard at Gogar, there they will stay. The utter farce of this vanity project will grind itself to a halt when the City of Edinburgh cannot raise the finance to finish the truncated project. So far they have spent government money. When they seek to burden the citizens with decades nay centuries of debt then they will have committed a criminal act against the people. Come May next year and the local government elections not one of these sorry escuses for councillors will be re-elected, as none of them deserve to be. New blood will close down this sorry excuse for a transport infrastructure and apologise to the people, the government can walk away and lick its wounds as they will never see a return on the money as Alex Salmond has stated, squandered on nothing !.

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