Leith Business Association

Free parking or free bus tickets are under consideration by Councillors during the tramworks, according to an article in the Edinburgh Evening News on 7 September:

Free parking plan during tramworks

It is concerning that no sooner has the decision been made to curtail the tram route at St Andrew Square, than all conversations focus purely on the 'city centre'.

Leith suffered the longest period of disruption during the utility works, and the impact is still being felt by local businesses.

The Open For Business funds, along with any concessionary schemes or compensation should be extended to all those affected by the Edinbugrh Tram - Leith will be seeking its share!

Councillor Steve Cardownie is quoted in The Scotsman on 28 June suggesting that the SNP group will be seeking to postpone the vote on the Edinburgh Tram Project on Thursday until a referendum on the matter has been held:

Cardownie: It's time to give the public their say on trams

Cllr Cardownie re-iterates the SNP's unsuccessful endeavours to cancel the Tram Project, and seeks to force the other political groups to listen to the electorate of Edinburgh. While this may seem like an admirable outcome - it is unlikely to be satisfactory. 

Rights of Access 

Councillors have a stautory right to demand to see any supporting documentation underlying the three options:

i) continue with the project - status quo

ii) terminate the contract

iii) build the line to Haymarket for £700M or to St Andrew Square for £773M

therefore SHOULD be able to gain enough information to ensure that the costs are all-inclusive, complete and relevant.  However, unless they demand to see this information, any decision they make will be ill-informed.

Councillors at least have a right to demand to see this level of detail - the citizenry of Edinburgh have no such right.  Expecting them to make a reasoned choice in a referendum is unrealistic:  a referendum will merely cost money and pass the decision-making process from a group of ill-informed politicians to the ill-informed populace of Edinburgh.

Perhaps the simplest solution would be for Councillors to demand the costs of the options from the tram consortium - the 'actual' costs involved - not those gerry-mandered by council officials to support a pre-determined outcome.

In a lengthy three-page article, the Edinburgh Evening News reveal that 78.6% of those responding to their recent survey would not support building the line from the Airport to St Andrew Square at a cost of £773M:

City rails against future of tram line

The survey showed an increasing disenchantment with the project since last conducted over a year ago.

Councillor Jenny Dawe has also been accused of insulting the Edinburgh populace by referring to the current situation and potentially astronomical cost-overruns as 'a slight glitch'. Cllr Dawe is still adamant that pressing ahead with the build to St Andrew Square is the best option.

In a worrying volte-face, the SNP have indicated that they are preparing to vote with the Liberal Democrats to continue the build to St Andrew Square. This is a strange outcome indeed from the political party who have made much of their continued opposition to the Tram Project.

In a frenzy of press reporting since the leaking of the Council's Tram Update report on Wednesday, only the Scotsman has quoted the true cost of continuing with the project:

£1bn to complete full Edinburgh tram line

All other press reports have focused on the £773M cost to build the part line to St Andrew Square, and compared this to the unsubstantiated figure of £750M to terminate the contract, however it is disingenuous so to do. Only the Scotsman has scoured the report to find the figure of £160M (with a 100% risk factor!) of continuing the line to its original destination of Newhaven.

As the article points out, the £750M cost to terminate is completely unsubstantiated, as it has been omitted from the published report - costs are only referred to on a 'confidential appendix'.  Even if this figure were to be accepted - it is still significantly less than the, up to, £1.09BN to complete the project in accordance with its original objective.

Spurious Comparisons

Comparing the cost to terminate against the cost to build to St Andrew Square is spurious - the comparison should only be against the entire line to be meaningful. Comparing this section of the line is just as meaningful as comparing the cost to terminate against a cost to build a line from the Airport to the Gogar depot!

Questionable Assumptions

Including the cost to build to Haymarket within the suggested options, although requested by Councillors, is a red herring.  Even tie's own Business Case has acknowledged that such a hugely truncated line would not be financially viable - losing £4M a year in operating costs, with no prospect of the losses ever falling below £3.1M. This £700M cost appears to have been stated prominently only to make the cost to terminate seem excessive by comparison.

The apparent viability of a line to St Andrew Square after an initial (unspecified) 'ramp up' period also relies on some outlandish assumptions - including a 40% 'modal shift' of commuters from cars to trams!

Carry on Regardless

The thrust of the report appears to be advocating a continuation of the project to St Andrew Square, in the hope that a solution will be found to the funding shortfall - discussion of which is set to be postponed until after September.