Trams dispute: 'It's a brave move – and a huge gamble'

Published on Monday 7 June 2010 10:22

THE long and often tortuous saga of Edinburgh's trams has today reached a pivotal moment.

The fact that next month was at one stage due to see the first trams running on our streets says it all about the project's many troubles.

Despite these problems – and despite what we have to say today – the Evening News has been supportive of the project, even when many readers made it clear they were fed up with the whole business.

But the decisive intervention of the city's transport leader, Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, means the entire scheme now hangs in the balance.

It has been clear for some time that the project is undeliverable under the current arrangements. Something had to give in the strained relationship between TIE and the council and their consortium partners.

There has been fault on both sides. There have been repeated failures by politicians and by those charged with delivering their vision.

But at the same time it appears to us that Bilfinger Berger has not delivered on what it was supposed to, and recently has spent more energy arguing about the contract than it has delivering on it.

Someone had to take the initiative and force the project out of the dangerous impasse into which it had fallen, and in sticking his head above the parapet, Cllr Mackenzie has done the brave and the right thing.

It is also a huge gamble – politically and for the project. It leaves us on a knife's edge, with the entire tram scheme set to fall one of two very different ways.

The first scenario – and the best possible outcome – is that the two sides agree that Bilfinger Berger leaves the project soon. That might involve a pay-off after completing part of the work, to St Andrew Square or Haymarket.

That would then allow the other consortium firms to do more work, or tender for another contractor to step in to complete the project.

The other, and unfortunately by far the more likely, scenario is that the dispute will now end up in court.

Experience of a similar dispute in Vancouver suggests that would leave the scheme stuck in limbo for years without a single new track being laid.

That's Mackenzie's big personal gamble, as he must know that could prove an electoral kiss of death for the Lib Dems at the upcoming Holyrood and city council elections.

But the impasse has surely now been broken and the city can look forward. One way or another.

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