Edinburgh Trams extension.
PHILIP HAIGH examines Edinburgh City Council’s plans to link the city centre and the airport to key investment and residential areas in Leith and Newhaven
“If the council is not to endure a repeat of complaints about road closures, it will need to carefully plan how to let its contractor build the line.”
MAY marks Edinburgh Trams’ fourth birthday. Operating between the city centre and airport, trams carried around 5.6 million passengers a year in 2016 (in line with predictions made in 2013), and took revenue of £10 million.
The network had a troubled birth, with costs rising and timetables lengthening. Shifting utilities - gas and water pipes as well as communications cables - proved challenging, and the city’s residents endured what seemed to be years of disruption with key routes such as Princes Street barricaded from use.
The diggers, dumpers and disruption are soon to return to Edinburgh, as the council plans for Leith and Newhaven to join the network. They should have been part of the original work, but were axed amid rising costs.
This extension will add 4.6km of line (2.85 miles) and seven tram stops (see panel). The eastern terminus in York Place will close, with a new stop at nearby Picardy Place replacing it. It’s set to cost £165m.
It will give Edinburgh a tram route that links three of the city council’s four priority investment areas (West, Centre and Waterfront). The city itself is expected to grow in population from 500,000 in 2014 to 600,000 in 2039. November 2016’s Local Development Plan expects new housing to be built in brownfield sites in Granton and Leith, while the latter is also expected to be the site of major office developments. And all this in a city currently dominated by cars.
Four companies are in the running to build the extension, which Edinburgh Council expects to take to tender later this year for work to start next spring. The four are: BAM Colas Rail; Dragados; Farrans Sacyr Neopul; and Sisk Steconfer.
The winning bidder will design and build all track, overhead line and tram stops, as well as altering roads between York Place and Newhaven. Work should start next spring if the council keeps to its schedule, and be finished in three years to allow trams to start running to Newhaven in summer 2022.
Modelling suggests the current network could be carrying 7.24 million passengers a year by 2022, rising to 13.22 million if the extension to Newhaven is open. A decade later, the figure could be 21 million. These figures assume that eight trams per hour run between the airport and Newhaven, with an extra eight per hour between Haymarket and Newhaven. This gives a tram every four minutes in the city centre and along Leith Walk.
The line should cost £114m to build, with risk priced at £33m and inflation at £18m - bringing a total cost of £165m. Edinburgh Council faces a funding gap of £1m that it must find even after assuming a £20m dividend from Lothian Buses, which it owns. It expects developer contributions of £7.8m. Following earlier aborted work, the council retains an extension design that is 85% complete. It also retains legal powers to build the line. Both allow a lower price for risk.
Last year’s outline business case recommended using a collaborative design and build contract between the council and main contractor, known as an NEC3 contract. This is similar to that used for Crossrail and which the Department for Transport proposes for HS2.
It suggested that a target cost rather than lump sum price be used, because the risks of unknown ground conditions would make it hard for contractors to quote a fixed lump sum. It rejected a private finance initiative (PFI) deal on the grounds that the council already has detailed designs and some of the equipment needed (for example, it already has sufficient trams to run the extension, with a fleet of 27). This cut the scope for private sector innovation that characterises many PFI deals.
If the council is not to endure a repeat of complaints about road closures, it will need to carefully plan how to let its contractor build the line. In general terms, the outline business case report suggested closures as large as possible to give the contractor freedom. It also made clear that roads should only be dug up once. This means that any work to move utilities will need to be followed immediately by tram line construction teams.
Nevertheless, Leith Walk is a major Edinburgh road. The council estimates that 25,000 people live within 800 metres of it.
It will be closed during the first phase of building work, with traffic diverted. When the tram extension opens, buses and trams will use a dedicated corridor down the centre of the street, with other traffic restricted to one lane on either side at peak times. Outside peak hours, all traffic will share the central lanes with trams, while the outer lanes will be dedicated to parking and loading, according to the council. Outline plans published by the council show ‘pedestrian-deterrent paving’ along the street’s centre line. Tram stops will consist of island platforms.
At its Leith Walk end,
Constitution Street will be closed to vehicles and bicycles once trams start running. They will run onwards to Ocean Drive and Ocean Terminal stops, serving an area that the council expects to be one of the city’s major development sites over the next 20 years.
The council describes the route beyond: “The final stop on the proposed route will serve one of Edinburgh’s northern villages, Newhaven. With its harbour and striking lighthouse as well as a variety of local and national restaurant chains, we expect this to be a popular destination for locals and visitors alike.”
This final stop will be next to Asda’s supermarket at Annfield, and close to new housing at Western Harbour.
Construction will take place in four phases, with the first concentrating on Leith Walk and the final part of the line between Ocean Terminal and Newhaven. The second phase will centre on the section between Ocean Terminal and Tower Place, and the third from there to Constitution Street. Work will take place between York Place and London Road during phases two, three and four, with the latter entailing York Place tram stop being decommissioned (replaced by Picardy Place), and the new line tied into the existing network.
Edinburgh Council began consulting local residents and stakeholders in mid-March, publishing outline plans and detailing the likely disruption. It also revealed how it intended to compensate local business. Once it has received feedback, it has pledged to adjust plans and consult again from this summer. Councillors will make their final decision to build to Newhaven this autumn.