The Edinburgh tram project was to build a tram line from the Airport to Leith – running through the city centre on the way.
This would have been a valuable addition to the infrastructure of the city and possibly the starting point for a larger network in due course. The project was costed at £545 million.
To date, £440 million of this has been spent, but only 28% of the infrastructure is completed. As far as I can see there seem to be 4 steel lines running the length of Princes St and the shell of a tram depot on the way to the airport.
The people of Edinburgh put up with about 4 years of disruption and chaos in their city centre, but there are now doubts that the project will ever be competed; even in a reduced form (Airport to St Andrew Square), a vote on the project will take place on 30th June.
£440 million for what seems destined to become a mile or so of ‘cycle tyre catchers’ seems rather a lot doesn’t it?
Even this seems a bargain compared to the £2.7 billion the health service have spent on the electronic records program – yeah, that’s right; the one that’s being scrapped, but that’s another story…
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