Trams: More delay expected as all parties try to find way ahead

ALTHOUGH major tramworks are scheduled for next week, a clear vote tomorrow to press ahead will still see a delay, perhaps of weeks, or even months.

Princes Street was supposed to close to all traffic on Monday for the best part of a year, but last night it was unknown if this would now proceed.

Business leaders are already worried about the works’ impact on the capital’s main thoroughfare over the festive season and want the start of work delayed until February at the earliest.

If the council overturns last week’s shock vote, senior officials will almost immediately launch a fresh round of negotiations with the construction consortium led by German outfit Bilfinger Berger.

There are already fears that the £776 million price tag for building a tram-line to St Andrew Square will rise again, particularly after the delays triggered by the council voting to curtail the line at Haymarket last week.

Contractors have had to be “stood down” over the past few days, while a special meeting of the council was ordered to discuss the implications of a threat to hike up the previous estimate of £700m for taking the line to Haymarket – and the Scottish Government’s subsequent threat to cancel future grant payments, worth some £72m.

Even if a new agreement is reached with the consortium, the council will be unable to set a fixed price for the scheme, mainly because of uncertainties and “inherent risks” involved in the part of the route from Haymarket to St Andrew Square.

A vote for St Andrew Square would almost certainly commit the council to borrowing some £231m to ensure the finance is in place to reach any new agreement with the contractors.

The fine details of how the council could borrow this money are still to be worked out, although it will effectively have to find £15.3m a year for the next 30 years under current proposals from city officials.

The Scottish Government will have to give its backing for the scheme again after freezing further funding earlier this week, although this decision had been based on the council cutting the line short at Haymarket.