Edinburgh Sucks! | Business chiefs want trams trashed

Andrew Burns

Business chiefs want trams trashed

By The Basa ⋅ October 15, 2005 ⋅

I wasted 8 million now I'm keeping my head down. Business leaders are today coming out and trashing the tram proposals for the city and going as far as accusing the people behind the trams as having no business sense.

Tim Steward, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: “We are concerned that we’re seeing the same sort of rising costs that we saw with the Scottish Parliament.

“We are generally supportive of trams, however we are concerned about the rising costs - it demonstrates that the people behind the proposals have little business sense.

The tram proposal which has seen the cost soar almost 100% to £714m when they realised that they had failed to take inflation into consideration was also slammed by the head of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, Ron Hewitt:

He said: “The rising costs are a concern and I’m looking forward to meeting with TIE to hear their case for the trams but also talk about the research we’ve been doing on possible alternatives.”

Even the estate agents are having a go. Roy Durie, a senior partner at property agents Ryden said:

“As Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling has been asking questions over the viability of tram schemes in Leeds and Liverpool but I’d like to know what he thinks of the one in his own back yard.

Of course, “TIE and the Edinburgh City Council are confident that the tram network will be of benefit to business, residents and the economy as a whole.” So that’s alrighty then.