Trams fiasco: these things happen all the time, claims new chairman

Published on Wednesday 9 February 2011 17:55

THE bitter wrangle which has all but halted Edinburgh's tram line construction is not that unusual, new project chairman Vic Emery has told The Scotsman.

The incoming head of city council-owned developers Tie said many building schemes elsewhere had faced similar problems. Mr Emery, speaking publicly for the first time in his new role, said: "There is nothing completely unusual about this."

The 67-year-old former shipyard troubleshooter, who is a veteran of major contracts, said: "It is completely annoying, but the fact is there are quite a lot of projects around the world like this which have some issues."

However, the claim was dismissed as a "smokescreen" by construction industry sources who doubted whether any other project had become such a big "pig's breakfast".

Mr Emery also said he was "very confident" that mediation talks between Tie and the construction consortium led by German firm Bilfinger Berger would produce a solution to the two-year-old contract dispute.

He explained his optimism by saying people did not go into mediation "without expecting a result at the other end". He added: "Mediation should be the best way forward. There has got to be some realism here."

Mr Emery also indicated Tie may adopt a more flexible stance after being accused of intransigence in the past. He said: "We cannot entrench ourselves so it becomes the whole issue. The tram is the issue."

Mediation is expected to start around 4 March and continue for two weeks.

However, Mr Emery acknowledged that terminating the construction contract was still a possibility.

He said: "There are a number of scenarios, such as separation of the ways, and working together to make things successful, and that's what we hope will happen."

The dispute, which centres on the extra cost and delays of changes to the construction contract, has led to work being halted on most of the 11.5-mile Edinburgh Airport-Newhaven line east of Haymarket, with only limited progress elsewhere.

Trams are now expected to initially run only as far east at St Andrew Square, in late 2013 at the earliest, with no published estimates of how much the 545 million project will ultimately cost.

However, Mr Emery said he was "absolutely" confident trams would start operating during his three-year term as chairman of both Tie and tram-bus umbrella body Transport Edinburgh.

Construction industry sources reacted with disbelief to the claims such disputes were common. One said: "I would be very surprised if there is any pig's breakfast as big as this elsewhere. That's a slight smokescreen."Steve Cardownie, the anti-tram SNP deputy leader of the city council, who shares power with the pro-tram Liberal Democrats, said the dispute remained unacceptable, however common it was.

He said: "It may not be unique, but it's no less unpalatable for that because of the disruption to the city and the cost to the taxpayer - how can he take comfort from that?"

BLAME GAME

Scotland's national transport body is guilty of "dereliction of duty" for failing to intervene to stop Edinburgh's tram project going over-time and over-budget, MSPs have claimed.

Edinburgh's trams are currently indefinitely delayed and face uncertain cost over-runs according to Scotland's Auditor General, who was called to give evidence to Holyrood's public audit committee.

Convener Hugh Henry, whose Labour Party devised the tram project, said Transport Scotland failed to protect the public's investment by "passively" signing off cheques without ensuring greater scrutiny of the project, and questioned whether it now has "the wit" to bring the project under control.

Labour's Lord Foulkes attacked intra-council arguments at the SNP-Liberal Democrat controlled Edinburgh City Council responsible for delivering the project, and questioned how a council "where the leader and deputy leader aren't even on speaking terms" could deliver a major public project.

In a report released last week, Auditor General Robert Black recommended that Transport Scotland now take a greater role in the oversight of the project.