Tram project: 'The city has been sold a pig in a poke'

Published on Friday 3 September 2010 12:30

AFTER months of wrangling, delays and frustration, there is little doubt that the tipping point has been reached in the Capital's troubled trams project.

We should know within weeks - and possibly days - whether trams will be running on some part of a line by 2012, or if the whole sorry saga is to end up on the buffers in court.

But what is already clear is that even if a deal is struck between trams firm TIE and contractor Bilfinger Berger the people of Edinburgh, and indeed Scotland, have been sold a pig in a poke.

A deal to get any work finished will be welcome, but let's not forget what we were originally promised for our 500m: a network running from the airport through the city centre to Newhaven, with a line to Little France and Newcraighall, plus a loop that would complete the circle from Haymarket to the waterfront.

That plan shrunk as costs mounted, largely because of unexpected, but surely foreseeable, problems clearing underground pipes and other infrastructure. Eventually, only the airport to Newhaven line remained.

As the News reports today, it is now crystal clear that we won't even get that.

The highest-placed sources on both sides of the project dispute have told this newspaper that there are only two options left on the table.

The tram line from the airport will either stop at York Place or the contract will be torn up and the lawyers will step in.

And if that happens, work will almost certainly stop for the duration of a lengthy civil action.

If this deeply unsatisfactory outcome seems familiar to News readers then it is probably because this newspaper revealed on 23 June that a compromise deal was likely to be struck which would see the line end at Haymarket or York Place.

At the time senior councillors and Richard Jeffrey, TIE chief executive, were damning in their criticism of our coverage, which they labelled "sensationalist".

It gives us no pleasure to have it confirmed that we were right all along. We want the trams, but this adds to our uncertainty that these people can deliver them - on any scale.