Tram bosses put off laying first piece of track for three months

Published on Tuesday 20 January 2009 08:49

TRAM bosses today admitted they have postponed the laying of the first piece of track in the £512m project for at least three months.

The long-awaited "milestone" in the return of the trams to the Capital's streets had been planned for Leith Walk later this month.

But now it is expected the first length of track will not be laid until April – and rather than Leith Walk, the highly symbolic step will take place in Princes Street.

TIE, the council's arms-length company overseeing the trams project, said the change of plan was due to the suspension of work in Leith Walk over Christmas. But it insisted the rescheduling did not mean any new delay to the overall project, which is intended to have a full tram service operating in the Capital by July 2011.

The first set of tram tracks were delivered to Leith in November by the suppliers, Austrian firm VAE. And they had been due to go down before the end of the month.

But long-suffering traders in Leith Walk now face several more months of disruption before they see any sign of the tracks appearing. Gordon Burgess, chairman of the Leith Business Association, said: "I would be very surprised if we see any tram rails on Leith Walk before June. That would mean we've had two years of holes being dug without a single stretch of track going down."

The latest setback means the first tracks will not be laid until after council chiefs decide whether to go ahead with phase 1b, the spur from Haymarket to Granton, which is in doubt because of a 50m budget shortfall. Councillors have been told they must make a decision by March.

And the news of the delay in track-laying also comes just ahead of the latest attempt to close the key junction of The Mound with Princes Street for works to be carried out there.

When tram bosses closed the junction in October, it resulted in traffic chaos, forcing them to abandon the operation. Princes Street is due to close for most of the rest of the year from the middle of next month.

A TIE spokesman said: "Due to the negotiated works embargo on Leith Walk over the festive period, TIE has amended the construction programme and allocated its resources to other parts of the route.

"This has resulted in a shift from the original position, where it was intended to install the first rails in Leith."

But he said the firm had always said 2009 was the year when people would see the trams beginning to become a reality.

He said: "We are very conscious that all people have seen so far is holes in the ground.

"But when the tracks begin to go down and people will be able see tangible signs of the trams and they will warm to the project."