Del Boys ready to pounce on tram project

f THE many receptacles for external communications at Edinburgh city council, the e-mail box of its leader Jenny Dawe must now be emitting a luminous, Chernobyl-like glow. After three years of mayhem over the blighted tram project, officials can be excused the precaution of regular hosing to cool its toxic contents: it is hardly likely to be bulging with hero-grams from a grateful populace. But in among the brickbats, Councillor Dawe says she has received bouquets. “I have been surprised,” she revealed yesterday, “by the number of e-mails I have received from all over the world – some from well-known companies” offering to complete the line to Newhaven and allowing the council to rent it back.

Looking at the history of the project to date, some may feel this is no cause whatever for surprise. Short of being gifted a high-speed printing press calibrated to run off £50 notes with the minimum of maintenance, such a prospect must surely tempt every Del Boy Trotter Construction Ltd to chance their arm at a contract where the fees can only go up and every problem is a tripwire for that printing press to run even faster. “Many of these,” says Councillor Dawe, “will be complete non-starters”.

Really? It would not do to bank on it.