A group of civil engineers have written to City of Edinburgh Council Chief Executive Sue Bruce warning her that in their opinion the project is even more out of control now than it was when tie were in charge. The four civil engineers are led by John Carson, former head of maintenance at Network Rail, who has been very vocal in the past about his anti-tram views so whether those ideas have led them to this conclusion is not known.
The group claim that:
The design of the project was still incomplete
There was no single experienced person in charge of
the project
The utility diversion project was still incomplete
The cost of extending the line from St Andrew Square to York Place had not been taken into consideration in the £776 million budget
In response to these allegations a Council spokesman said in the Edinburgh Evening
News: “The council has now taken the lead on delivering the project, which has gained fresh momentum in recent months and is enjoying its busiest and most constructive period to date. All the work, including design, utility diversions and construction, remains in line with expectations and we are on course to deliver the project within the revised
budget by summer 2014.”
When someone is consistently anti-tram, then it’s difficult to take their criticisms on face value, as you suspect nothing about the project would ever satisfy them. This group of people may be right in some of their comments. I’ve no idea, but I would pay more attention if they were less biased. At the end of the day, every place in the UK that has installed a tramway has seen benefits ranging from improved environment, rising property prices and of course improved transport. That has happened even in Sheffield, which got off to a bad start. I don’t doubt that once the Edinburgh system is up and running, people will be glad they have it, but unfortunately there is no doubt it has been very badly handled, so it’s no surprise there is currently such cynicism about it.