Trams mess - 'An inquiry must expose the mistakes'

IT HAS been some time since anyone truly believed there would be a "successful" outcome to the trams project. That hope disappeared over the horizon like the last train out of town many, many months ago.

All that is left to discover is the degree of failure for a project which promised the city a green, modern transport system but is now beset by ever-rising costs and ever-lower expectations.

It is apparent that the best we can hope for is a line from the airport to the city centre, costing almost twice as much as the original estimate for a multiple-track network.

But, as this newspaper revealed on Saturday, even that looks unlikely. Instead, the gap between what tram firm TIE is willing to pay Bilfinger Berger to finish even that reduced job and what the contractor wants is now said to be more than 100 million.

If so, the long-predicted descent into law is inevitable. That means not a foot more track will be laid and that the only progress will be in the retirement portfolios of some lucky lawyers.

The News has said it before, but it bears repeating: a full investigation must be held into what has gone wrong.

A public inquiry is inevitable. Not to see if mistakes were made; we know they were. The inquiry must have a more brutal purpose: to expose those who made those mistakes and hold them to account for this massive waste.

The starting point will be the original contract, signed in April 2008. Sources close to the project say the deal was imperfect, to put it mildly. The reasons why it was signed just eight weeks before work began may be illuminating.

We can't know for sure because, curiously, the contract remains under lock and key and out of sight of the public who are paying for it, even though the figures involved have been so far overtaken that surely nothing can still be commercially sensitive.

This newspaper has been critical of many involved with this project, including key players in TIE. But it is worth recording that only qualified blame can be attached to chief executive Richard Jeffrey, who after all inherited this particular sow's ear and that contract. When the inquiry comes we suspect it won't be his head on the tram tracks but those closer to the City Chambers who brought him in to sort out their mess.