Quintin Jardine's blog

There isn’t a writer of fiction anywhere in the world who could have created the saga of the Edinburgh trams. When a factual account is written and published, as it will be one day for sure, bookstores won’t know whether to file it under Humour, Fantasy or Horror.

The latest crunch meeting was last night in Edinburgh. After years of traffic chaos, project hold-ups and ever-spiralling costs, the city’s councillors had an opportunity to scrap the whole misbegotten project and write off the costs to date. Some of it involved necessary relocation of services, and that could have been sold as acceptable. But they didn’t. Instead they decided in their infinite(-ssimal) wisdom that the city will have a tram service from Haymarket Station to Edinburgh Airport and that will be that. Those who know Edinburgh well don’t have to be told how daft that is. The final projected cost will be £700m, they say, but no-one is really certain of that. The quoted annual operating loss for the new service, £4m, is much more believeable.

When this nonsense began four years ago, citizens were promised an integrated service from Leith to the Airport. The quoted cost was £514m, but I don’t know anyone who believed that. The newly elected minority SNP government at Holyrood tried to put a stop to it, but its proponents won the day, which they are now left to rue. Last year, retail businesses along Princes Street lost God knows how much money when Edinburgh’s main thoroughfare was closed so that tram lines could be laid. The job was botched and was scheduled to be repeated this winter, but presumably the rails will now simply be removed. I propose that this should not be contracted out. Instead, every councillor who voted for the project, and every senior executive involved in the shambles that it became, should be clad in broad arrow overalls, shackled to a ball and chain, given pick-axes and made to  dig the  fucking things up themselves.

Furthermore, I propose that the authors of this story of ineptitude should pay an even greater price. The councillors who voted for the project on Day One, and for its continuation ever since, should be surcharged for the entire cost. No, the money could never be recovered and the taxpayer will be hit regardless, but to me it is right and fair that those who visited this massive burden on Scotland’s capital city should be saddled with its consequences for the rest of their lives.