Edinburgh North-South tramline risks becoming 'fantasy project' due to lack of funding, claims senior councillor

Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Kevin Lang said there was currently "no credible funding plan" for the project and therefore "no realistic prospect" of it being built.

His comments came after the results of the council’s consultation on the project were published, showing only 40 per cent of the 11,425 responses backed a North-South line.

Scottish Government ministers have said in the past they have "no plans" to fund the new line from Granton to the Royal Infirmary and beyond.

And last month First Minister John Swinney told the Evening News the tramline was a "local transport project" which the council was responsible for taking forward.

Cllr Lang said: “Without Scottish Government funding, the proposed tram extension risks becoming little more than a fantasy project.

“For the past two years, ministers have made clear that funding a tram extension is not affordable. Yet despite years of debate and consultation, there is still no credible explanation of how even the next stage of work — developing a full business case — would be funded, let alone the eventual construction costs.

“The Scottish Government says it will not pay. The council’s Labour administration says council taxpayers will not pay. So who will?

“Edinburgh council needs to face reality. This project has no credible funding plan behind it. We cannot afford to keep spending public money on plans that have no realistic prospect of being delivered.”

However, Labour transport convener Stephen Jenkinson said it was normal for projects not to have secured funding at this stage. And he said developing the Strategic Business Case for the project, the next step, would strengthen the council's ability to get funding.

Cllr Jenkinson, who works as an IT specialist for the Royal Bank of Scotland, said: "I've delivered, in my day job, a number of significant infrastructure projects over many years. None of them had funding in the bank before we had written a Strategic Business Case.

"You've got to build the case before you can secure the necessary funding to deliver it. This is normal project management. It's the right way to do it.

"So I'm quite comfortable about the journey we're on and trying to articulate as best I can that not having money in the bank to deliver the tram project at this stage is perfectly acceptable and perfectly reasonable.

"It doesn't mean that we're not thinking about how we're going to tackle that issue, but I think it's fair to say that no project of this scale and size would have any guaranteed funding at this stage."

Cllr Jenkinson said he was "a little bit confused" by John Swinney's comments, in his interview with the Evening News during the Scottish Parliament election campaign, in which he described the North-South tramline as a "local project" for the council to take forward, while the SNP pledged in its manifesto to fund a feasibility study for reopening Edinburgh's South Sub railway.

“The South Suburban line is much more of a local transport project than the tram,” said Cllr Jenkinson. He said he regarded the new tramline as “a regional project of national significance”.

And he added: “The North-South tram is one of the most ambitious and forward thinking mass transit schemes in the country.”

He said the council had had conversations with the UK Government’s National Wealth Fund, seeking guidance and advice on funding options, and that work was ongoing.

And he said: “I listened very carefully to the words of the First Minister - he didn’t explicitly rule out government funding for either the North-South tram project or the South Sub.

“Even in the Scottish Government's own budget, the Finance Secretary included mass transit for Edinburgh in the infrastructure delivery pipeline.”

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