Yet again, the subject of Edinburgh Trams is a hot topic of conversation around Edinburgh, this time due to the current online consultation that is running from 3 to 30 September 2018 outlining the proposed plans to extend the tram line down Leith Walk to Newhaven.
Once this consultation has ended, the council propose to put the final plans to a vote by councillors by the end of this year.
But have lessons been learnt from the first phase of the tram project, which started running in 2014, 5 years behind schedule and at a final cost of £776m, far exceeding the initial budget of £375m that was set aside for the project by the then Labour led Scottish Government.
My question is, how can lessons have been learnt, when the inquiry into the failures of the first phase of the tram delivery have not yet been published? The inquiry, headed by Lord Hardie, was tasked to review over 6 million documents and listen to detailed testimony from contractors, lawyers, City Councillors and Scottish Ministers in order to, as it states on its own website, “establish why the Edinburgh Trams project incurred delays, cost more than originally budgeted and through reductions in scope delivered significantly less than projected.”
If the first phase was so flawed and required an inquiry to be called into its failings, why press onto the second phase without waiting for the inquiry findings? The Tram Inquiry website confirm the inquiry will, when it finally produces their long awaited report, be “making recommendations as to how major tram and light rail infrastructure projects of a similar nature might avoid such failures in future.’
Not only do we need to wait for these findings to be published, we need to take time to review them in detail and put robust plans in place to ensure these failings do not and cannot happen again. The current SNP/Labour led Council seem hell bent on pushing ahead with the next phase of the project without waiting for the findings of the public inquiry which has cost the taxpayer over £1 million to date.
We need to take time to learn from our mistakes so that we do not run the risk of repeating them.