Trams bring more turmoil for Alistair Darling

Published on Friday 5 December 2008 09:31

HE may be busy bailing out banks and trying to revive an ailing economy, but just like everyone else in Edinburgh, Alistair Darling gets frustrated at being held up by the Capital's tram works.

If the Chancellor needs time to think about the next stage in Britain's recovery plan, he might find it while he is stuck in traffic at the West End.

"I went to collect someone from Haymarket station a couple of weeks ago," he recalls. "And it took me about 40 minutes to get from one end of Morrison Street to the other.

"I'm not going to be a back-seat driver, but all I can say is it must be possible to manage the roadworks better."

In an interview before he addressed Edinburgh businessmen at a Chamber of Commerce dinner last night, Mr Darling – MP for Edinburgh South-West – concedes some disruption was inevitable with such a major project.

"I'm in no position to tell the council which streets need to be done when," he says. "But I just think at the moment it is terribly disruptive and I do get an awful lot of complaints from shopkeepers and constituents, especially in Dalry. And the worst of it is it's not due to finish for another couple of years yet."

One of Mr Darling's previous jobs in the Government was as Transport Secretary and he hints Edinburgh could benefit from a measure he introduced down south.

"I spent four years doing transport and one of the pieces of legislation we passed, though it doesn't apply in Scotland, was to give local authorities power and a duty to manage traffic properly. It's devolved, so it's up to the Scottish Parliament to decide whether it wants to do it or not.

"But I really think officials and councillors need to sit down and see whether or not they can't phase this work.

"It's amazing what you can do if you want to manage these things. You can sit down and go through these intelligently and say 'How do we make sure we don't have too much being dug up at the same time?'. Otherwise you get gridlock."

The Chancellor is accepting rather than enthusiastic about the trams project. "Because it's devolved I've never had to look at the case for it. My view on balance is it will be good for the city.

"This city is a vibrant, cosmopolitan place, people like to live here and anything that can encourage people to come here, that's a good thing."

But his frustration at the roadworks seems to be based not only on personal inconvenience but the deterrent effect the disruption is having on consumers.

"As Chancellor I want people to be going in to shops and buying goods.

"There are all these posters up in shops in the middle of Edinburgh saying VAT's been cut and I'm keen to encourage them to go and spend their money."

Mr Darling is generally upbeat about the prospects for Edinburgh's economy despite the crisis which has engulfed HBOS and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

He says: "Although this has been extremely difficult and extremely worrying for people who work for banks, I believe we will get through this. The next year is going to be tough. But the World Bank, for example, estimates the world economy will double in the next 20 years.

"That is a massive opportunity for financial institutions – it's not just the banks in Edinburgh, you've got Standard Life, Scottish Widows, investment houses, pensions. There are huge opportunities not just to sell into the UK economy, but to sell into Europe and the rest of the world. So I remain optimistic that, despite the fact there has been a huge knock this year, the financial services industry will get through it.

"Edinburgh is the second biggest financial centre outside London and there are a lot of strengths here. Even in the dark days, we should not forget there is good quality employment here and good opportunities in the future."

As well as having to cope with the global financial crisis, Mr Darling also finds time to be a constituency MP, and recently spoke up against the council's plans to close Westburn Primary School in Wester Hailes.

And he says he is sorry the campaign to save it was unsuccessful.

"I visited the school and met the head teacher and staff and I was very impressed by the school. I'm sorry it was closed on the casting vote of the provost. I think it was a good school."

Mr Darling is also arguing against the closure of a post office in his constituency, despite the fact he was the Secretary of State who began the closure programme.

Oxgangs post office was added to the UK-wide hit list after two other city branches were spared.

But Mr Darling says: "I talked to the postmaster and also the extremely enthusiastic manager of a small supermarket in the same parade and I'll do what I would always do, put my constituents' case to the Post Office – and I hope they will look at it again.

"There are particular circumstances – it's halfway up a hill, there are quite a lot of elderly people who use it." He says when he was Secretary of State he sought to establish what size of post office network was viable, but added each case had to be judged on its merits.

He says there was never a target of 2500 closures, but rather criteria – like people in urban areas being within a mile of a post office – which led to around that number of branches being earmarked to shut.

"On top of that, we have put 1.7 billion into the Post Office to support it," he said. "It's still losing money and it will always lose money. It is a social service and that's important.

"But if we hadn't done something you would have had haphazard closures all over the place, which would have meant great gaps in provision."

The Chancellor even joined the fight to stop Tesco closing down a supermarket, which he says was a handy store for people in Wester Hailes.

"They built a new Tesco down at Hermiston Gait opposite B&Q, but that resulted in the loss of the store at Wester Hailes.

"It's a pity because a lot of people in Wester Hailes don't have access to cars and you simply can't get to Hermiston Gait without a car – even with a car, it's difficult to find."

Eight years ago, when he was Social Security Secretary, Mr Darling gave an interview talking about the strains his job placed on family life, and was later forced to deny it was a signal he might be thinking of stepping down.

And he says he has no plans to go now either. "I've been Chancellor of the Exchequer at a time of unprecedented turbulence throughout the world and I have always relished the challenge.

"John Smith once said to me a job that isn't difficult isn't a job at all."

IN HIS OWN WORDS . .

On trams"I'm not going to be a back-seat driver, but all I can say is it must be possible to manage the roadworks better."

"As Chancellor I want people to be going into to shops any buying goods.

"There are all these posters up in shops in the middle of Edinburgh saying VAT's been cut and I'm keen to encourage them to go and spend their money."

On Edinburgh's financial sector

"The next year is going to be tough. But the World Bank, for example, estimate the world economy will double in the next 20 years. That is a massive opportunity for financial institutions.

"Even in the dark days, we should not forget there is good quality employment here and good opportunities in the future."

On the global downturn

"If we had been talking about this a year ago and you had said imagine there wouldn't be an investment bank left in Wall Street, people would have laughed.

"I said I thought it would be the worst for 60 years. The legitimate criticism that could be made is that it might more accurately have been 80 or 90."

On Westburn Primary

"I visited the school and met the headteacher and staff and I was very impressed by the school and I'm sorry it was closed on the casting vote of the provost. I think it was a good school. It was a very happy school."

On Oxgangs Post Office

"I talked to the postmaster and also the extremely enthusiastic manager of a small supermarket in the same parade and I'll do what I would always do – put my constituents' case to the Post Office – and I hope they will look at it again.

"There are particular circumstances - it's half way up a hill, there are quite a lot of elderly people use it."

On Tesco at Wester Hailes

"They built a new Tesco down at Hermiston Gait opposite B&Q, but that resulted in the loss of the store at Wester Hailes. It's a pity because a lot of people in Wester Hailes don't have access to cars and you simply can't get to Hermiston Gait without a car - even with a car, it's difficult to find."

On HBOS

"Whatever happens to HBOS, whether the merger goes ahead or whether somebody even at this stage came along, there are going to be difficult decisions to be made, simply because they built their business on a particular business model that no longer exists.