Transport: 'Not one penny more for trams'

Published on Thursday 31 March 2011 18:28

Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott said he does not intend to spend "one more penny" on the troubled tram project in Edinburgh.

Mr Scott was in the city yesterday to discuss his party's rail improvement plans with staff at Waverley Station, which is undergoing a 130 million facelift, alongside Edinburgh Central candidate Alex Cole-Hamilton.

Mr Cole-Hamilton said that "it shouldn't just be left to Edinburgh taxpayers to pick up the bill" for Scotland's fourth-largest public-sector project.

As transport minister in the previous Labour-Lib Dem administration, Mr Scott steered the Edinburgh Trams Act through parliament but the project has since ground to a halt amid contractual difficulties.

Although mediation talks between the Lib Dem-SNP controlled Edinburgh city council and the Bilfinger Berger-Siemens consortium contracted to carry out the work are ongoing, the project is almost certain to exceed the original 545m budget.

The council's tram delivery company TIE has said it may approach the Scottish Futures Trust, which Labour wants to abolish, for more money after the SNP administration indicated it would not provide any more cash. Mr Scott said he would not give TIE any more money either if elected.

He said: "You certainly can't rely on me to provide one more penny to a project when we've already been spending a considerable amount of money on it."

However, he did offer his support for two other transport projects which the Lib Dems believe are of national importance, the Aberdeen Crossrail project and the Borders Rail Link.

He said: "We want to make sure that new stations like Kintore can reopen in the future, get people on to rail and off the road where that's a real alternative."

He added: "I'm absolutely committed to delivering the Borders Railway.

"We've been talking about it for 12 years in parliament now and not much has happened, and I want to see that project move forward to help both the Borders economy and the wider economy of Scotland."

The Lib Dems believe they are in a "two-horse race" with Labour in Edinburgh Central after boundary changes indicated they would have won the seat if the new boundaries had been in place in 2007.