SNP’s £11million trams inquiry stuck in sidings

Six years since ‘swift’ probe was launched

THE inquiry into the £1 billion Edinburgh trams fiasco has still to publish its findings – two years after the final evidence was heard.

It is nearly six years since the probe was launched by then First Minister Alex Salmond, who promised it would be ‘swift and thorough’.

Final submissions were heard in May 2018 but the inquiry’s chairman, former High Court judge Lord Hardie, has yet to produce a report.

Critics are now pointing out that the attempt to discover what went wrong could end up taking longer than construction of the tram system itself.

Ambitions to reintroduce trams to the capital – they had stopped running in November 1956 – were first voiced at the beginning of the millennium.

But the decision to go ahead with the project has proved one of the most calamitous public infrastructure projects of modern times.

What started as an ambitious civic scheme costing £375 million and linking Edinburgh Airport with Leith descended into a £1 billion fiasco that shuddered to a halt halfway along the proposed route.

In a closing speech to the inquiry, lawyer Douglas Fairley, representing directors of the tram delivery company, said the contract had been written in a way that let the contractor hold the employer ‘to ransom’.

Mr Fairley agreed with a view expressed by others ‘that the way in which the contract was constructed tended to encourage disputes’.

Work has now restarted on completing the missing tram link from the city centre to Leith but the findings into what went wrong the first time have still to be shared.

Inquiry costs have soared to £11 million and the Scottish Government has confirmed that a further £200,000 of public money has been committed for the year to April 2021.

Tory Lothian MSP Miles Briggs said: ‘It is absurd the inquiry is still dragging on.

‘Given the astonishing pressures on public finances, these ongoing costs seem particularly outrageous.’

An Edinburgh Tram Inquiry spokesman said ‘good progress’ was being made and its findings ‘will be made available at the earliest opportunity’.

He added: ‘Lord Hardie’s remit is to conduct a robust inquiry and it will take as long as is necessary.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said the SNP-led minority administration at the time wanted to scrap the entire scheme 13 years ago.

He added: ‘We look forward to receiving Lord Hardie’s findings. Although Ministers have had no role in the day-today running of this inquiry, they wanted it to be efficient, cost-effective and deliver clear recommendations.’

‘It’s absurd this is still dragging on’