Intervention better late than never for the trams

Formally the Scottish Government has not taken over responsibility for Edinburgh’s ill-fated and much-delayed trams project. To all intents and purposes, however, that is exactly what has happened, with the government, through Transport Scotland, taking on a power of veto over key decisions and up to five of the quango’s staff moving into the city council’s headquarters to supervise the scheme.

The idea of involving Transport Scotland was mooted as long ago as February in a report by the public spending watchdog Audit Scotland. At the time we set out in this space the powerful arguments for involving Transport Scotland: that it could bring experience to bear on complex logistical problems; it had worked with the German contractor Bilfinger Berger; and the involvement of an outside party could help to lift the project’s credibility. Those arguments are as valid today as they were then. It is a tragedy it has taken so long for ministers in St Andrew’s House to take up what was obviously a sensible and practical suggestion, for in the time since then there have been further delays, further increases in cost and further embarrassment for the capital and for Scotland.

The SNP government, of course, would have found it difficult in February to step in as it has opposed the project, but even then there was a certain inevitability to intervention and it is still regretable it did not do so.

There is, however, little point in dwelling on what might have been. The task now is for Transport Scotland, under the eye of ministers, to help ensure the completion of the project from the airport to St Andrew Square, something that will be made easier by the fact that in part of yesterday’s deal Edinburgh will receive its full £500 million grant for the project.

So although the talks were still taking place with Bilfinger Berger last night, there is finally the prospect of Edinburgh joining the long list of cities across the UK and Europe that have tram schemes, even if the project in the capital has suffered setback after setback as a result of disunity on the council that was driving the idea and further stymied by a dispute with the Scottish Government.

With this successful completion at last in sight, it is a good time to remember the founding vision for the scheme, which was to create a modern, environmentally friendly tram network for Scotland’s capital that was originally intended to extend as far as Leith, have a line to Granton from Haymarket and a further line south out to Little France. The lesson from other cities where there have been problems, Dublin being a prime example, is that once the inevitable cost over-runs are accepted, and once the service gets running, the public grow to like trams and even wish to see them extended. It may be a long way off, but we can hope that, eventually, the same happens in Edinburgh.