Who would have thought a report being sent to the printers would be headline news! But when it’s a report into an Inquiry which has been going on for very nearly nine years and has cost over £13 million its quite an important step towards finding out the results and to learn for the future. Of course, the report we are talking about is the Edinburgh Trams Inquiry which looks as if it could be just a few weeks away from being released.
The Scottish Government announced the setting up of a far reaching Inquiry into what had gone wrong with the initial Edinburgh Trams project way back in June 2014 and since then an oft asked question has been “when are the results going to be known?”.
The terms of reference for the Inquiry was to establish why the Edinburgh Tram project incurred delays, cost more than originally budgeted and through reductions in scope delivered significantly less than projected. The first preliminary hearings took place in October 2015 and the final evidence was heard by Lord Hardie in 2018. The past five years have then see Lord Hardie and his team reviewing this evidence along with thousands of documents which will lead to the release of the final report.
In a statement on the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry posted on 26th April 2023 it is said: “Lord Hardie’s Report into the Edinburgh Trams Project has today been handed over to the publishing company and will be with them for several weeks. Please do not contact the Inquiry for updates during this time as the Report will be published on the Inquiry website as soon as it is ready.”
With the Inquiry taking so long, the City of Edinburgh Council have already pressed ahead with constructing an extension to the tramline and the Trams to Newhaven project is almost ready for opening so any learnings from the Inquiry will only have limited scope at this time, although could help any future extensions or similar large scale projects in Scotland.
We now wait to see the final report and continue to ask ourselves, what comes first? The Inquiry report or the start of public services to Newhaven? Or maybe it will be a tie?!