Trams referendum plan is rejected as Edinburgh councillors press on

Published on Friday 25 June 2010 00:10

SCRAPPING Edinburgh's troubled tram project would be a "criminal waste of public money", councillors in charge of the project insisted yesterday.

Demands for a referendum on the scheme were swept aside as the vast majority of councillors voted to throw their weight behind the scheme – despite fears over growing costs and warnings that some parts of the proposed route may be ditched.

The SNP, in coalition with the Lib Dems to run Edinburgh City Council, was accused of trying to hijack the scheme for political benefit as it failed in a bid to ensure "not a penny more" of public money was spent on the project.

An opinion poll published yesterday in the Edinburgh Evening News found 47 per cent of people in the city in favour of scrapping the scheme, with 39 per cent in favour of work continuing, and 13.6 unsure of what its fate should be.

During a stormy debate at the City Chambers lasting almost two hours, councillors heard claims that staging a referendum would cost several million pounds and delay the tram project by around nine months.

There were also warnings that the city would face having to pay back to the Scottish Government the 375 million already spent on the scheme.

However, the council's tram firm has been set a three-month deadline to draw up a new business plan, spelling out detailed options and costings for taking the scheme forward. Councillors are likely to be asked to decide whether or not to try to get the scheme up and running by shelving some parts of the route, even though this may hit passenger numbers.

The Scotsman revealed last week that the council's tram company Tie was being forced to look at curtailing the first phase of the tram at four different points – Haymarket, York Place, the foot of Leith Walk and Ocean Terminal – as well as the planned end-point at Newhaven. The move has triggered claims that Leith Walk and the city's waterfront will be ditched from the tram route – despite businesses already having faced more than two years of disruption.

It emerged last week that the final bill for the project is set to hit 600 million, even though the government has capped its funding at 500m. The council has banked just 16.4 million.

SNP councillors said the time had arrived for the council to pull the plug on the project and apologise for disruption caused to the people of Edinburgh.

Although the SNP topped short of calling for a vote on a referendum yesterday, the party was hoping to trigger such a move at a special meeting later in the year. But Lib Dem, Labour, Tory and Green councillors joined forces to support the tram firm negotiations with the German-led consortium it has been in dispute with for more than a year.

Gordon Mackenzie, city transport leader, said: "There has been some progress with the negotiations and we are doing our best to bring these to a speedy conclusion, but it's in the best interests of the whole city that we get the best deal for the taxpayer."

Lib Dem councillor Paul Edie said: "At the moment the trams scheme is a house which has the walls built but not the roof. It would be crazy to abandon it at this stage."

Fellow Lib Dem Phil Wheeler said: "It would be a criminal waste of public money to abort the scheme now."