Are they offering to pay for it -NO! I it is such a good idea then let private enterprise fund it.

Just say no to trams.

Aye - hands in pockets please.

Can't we just have an Edinburgh referendum on the damn things and get it over with?

RBS must have seen the Business Case!

Read more tram facts here:

www.tramfacts.wordpress.com

Why not just ask the people who live in Edinburgh what they think. After all, it's our city, we pay for it and therefore we will make the best decision for our city.

Personally, it's a waste of money and I have still not had anyone give me a valid reason why this is a good use of public money.

#2 Only if it is funded 100% by Edinburgh people otherwise the whole country has a say in it!

#5 Ali M

The argument seems to be mainly one of "prestige" ie Edinburgh is the Capital City of Scotland and therefore should have trams.

Of course, the argument is completely fatuous.

New Forth Road Bridge + EARL + Tram Line = £2.5 billion.

If Standard Life, Harvey Nichols and Edinburgh University want a tram line then they should stump up some cash for it.

Oh well if Harvey Nics want a tramLINE lets build it as soon as possible, we all know how much their customers like to use public transport they'll feel right at home on the tram with the jakeys from Leith heading into town to collect their giros.

He added that many big companies in Edinburgh appeared to be in favour of the scheme - despite their reticence to declare that publicly.

Christ now they just make stuff up and hope the pro tramLINE lobby fall for it.

£1500 an inch and counting. Scrap the trams.

Um, who cares what businesses think of the trams.

I really don't think that the directors of Standard Life and Harvey Nichols are likely to be using it.

And they certainly shouldn't be trying to blackmail a government elected on an anti-tram platform.

Boom and boom.

Correct me if I am wrong, but Harvey Nicks and RBS ARE paying for the tram!

Developers along the route have to pay contributions towards the tram as they will benefit, and this presumably includes RBs and Harvey Nicks.

(couldnt find that myth on Tramfacts, so busted it myself)

"And they certainly shouldn't be trying to blackmail a government elected on an anti-tram platform."

Not in Edinburgh, where it counts, they weren't!

http://www.edinburgh-tram.co.uk/scene.htm

Hilarious photos on their website(how much did that cost?)6 photos one car! Where exactly is the traffic? Is it all going to disappear when the tramLINE is opened in 2015? And I see they are still calling it a system.

Scrap the trams.

Perhaps what the SNP government should do is release the cash, stressing that they do not believe it provides value for money, and only on the following provisos:
1) No further cash beyond the agreed amount will be paid by the Executive.
2) The tab for any overspend will have to be picked up by pro-tram businesses listed above as well as Edinburgh City Council.
That should focus the minds of the backers of the tram plan to get the project complete ON BUDGET.

"#2 Only if it is funded 100% by Edinburgh people otherwise the whole country has a say in it!"

Well in that case, pro tram parties totally outnumber anti tram MSPs.

Whether you think that the tram line will cost £600m or £6bn it is a huge amount of money.

Given the huge spend the proponents should let an independent review of the costs and benefits happen - not one carried out by transport consultants. The onus should be to prove that there is an environmental, financial, economic or social gain from the trams. TIE and the Council have not proven this.

Are there seriously no higher priorities amongst the opposition MSP groups for public spending? What about cuts in business rates to boost growth? Or the dualling of the A9? Or building a new supply of council houses? Or improving the quality of old age nursing homes? Or removing the congestion creation measures in Edinburgh?

"1) No further cash beyond the agreed amount will be paid by the Executive."

Err, that is already the case! The Exec contribution is capped at £500m. The Council has put in £45m, mostly from developer contributions. So only £545m worth of line is being built at the moment - from Leith toteh airport.

It would be great if some facts could enter this debate at some point.

"Or removing the congestion creation measures in Edinburgh?"

Such as?

Dear God, just let the thing die!!!

18 PeterPete but the costs for that line are already above £545m.

Who do you think is going to make up the difference?

I'm one of the tram nay-sayers.

I want to know ... who exactly is going to benefit from the things??

Plus how long are the roads going to be torn up and plunging the rest of us into a traffic chaos??

Some answers would be nice.

#23
People who want to travel between Leith and the airport, and the traffic will be disrupted for 7-8 years at least.

We would like the bigger companies to get on board and show public support for the scheme - WHAT PUBLIC SUPPORT!

Why not ask big business for a major contribution to the tram scheme and let us see how big their commitment is?
Once you start asking for hard cash I am sure their resolve will disappear quicker than a rat down a hole.
Take RBS for instance, happy to splash the cash on Formula 1 but trams, I don't think so.
As with all financial institutions they make their money by not spending or spending on something they know will make them a mint.

If the businesses are not going to pay for at least half of it the city should get trolley buses instead.

Why should companies like RBS pay for our tramLINE? They pay taxes already and I belive they may have chipped in a few quid already, no if we have to build a tramLINE then all of Scotland should pay for it. but when it is several million pounds overbudget and several years late I hope people remember who forced it upon the Scottish taxpayers. It won't be the SNPs fault it'll lie at the feet of New Labour and they're puppy dogs the Lib Dems.

"they're"?? Geeze sorry their..

Re Colin Howden photo above, I would be disappointed too if my face looked like that!

13

Is that link for real?

That's the funniest thing I've ever seen! There were better special effects in 1950s B-Movies!

#13 I think those pics are an AM2 cut n' paste job gone horribly wrong!

#14 Tempting as it is to agree with you, at the end of the day why should we let the tram project proceed when very few members of the public or businesses seem to want it! It's too high a price to pay (financially and disruptively) just to wipe the smile off Tavish Scott's face!

I don't think its official website just the one google puts at the top, I think the photos have been lifted from the official site though.

#15 Sorry but i fail to understand the relevance of your post.....

#23 I can answer both of your questions with absolute certainty.

Q1: I want to know ... who exactly is going to benefit from the things??

A1: The contractors who build the thing.

Q2: how long are the roads going to be torn up and plunging the rest of us into a traffic chaos??

A2: Zero time because the scheme will not go ahead.

Cheers!

It's not really a case of whether it can be afforded or not, or even whether the project plan is up to standard or not. All the Auditor did was look at the plan to see if the plan was viable, not whether the trams were viable. In examining the plan, the might have raised an eyebrow if it called for 500,000 miles of cabling, but would not have the technical expertise to know it a call for 50 miles of cabling on a certain part should have been only 40, or actually 60. Just because the Auditor said it looked ok, doesn't mean there will not be overruns.

The essential point is do we want to have trams as a first priority on this money, or are there higher priorities in Scotland at the moment?

If the Labour Party, the LibDems and all these Business people want the trams, then let them form a company themselves, fund it, and then charge people and the city to use their trams. If they are so convinced of the business case and what a wonderful benefit it will to everyone, let them put their money where their mouths are - they can afford it.

In the meantime, lets use tax money to provide more essential services.

I think, anyway, that the trams will have to be scrapped to cover the theft of the £400m threatened by Westminster if this Scottish Government changes the Council Tax.

#13 Just looked at the link. So this is where all the money has disappeared to. Not much value for £100m though.

"SOME of the Capital's leading business and education institutions today urged the Scottish Executive not to scrap the trams project."

Fine, let them pay for it then, how about full-scale PRIVATE funding? No way, the private investment sector is not nearly daft enough for that, so wring it out of the tax payers - snouts to the troughs lads, the private sector smells public money and the Scottish Parliament will vote this through on Wednesday (the fools!!).

Dump the trams scheme, very few people in Edinburgh want it, the scheme will do nothing for the economy and even less to reduce congestion.

The Scotsman/ Evening News seems to have its own "pro-trams" agenda.

Can it be that the opinions of businesses/ advertisers/ Labour politicians hold more sway than the readers who buy the newspapers?

I find the papers' unblinking support of this "not-a-tram-network" deeply saddening. Does Scotland not have any professional journalists who can report news impartially and objectively without bias?

C'mon the buses.

I've had another look at the link (http://www.edinburgh-tram.co.uk/scene.htm) posted at #13.

I've come to some conclusions.

It's such a bad website that it's either:

1 - A hoax by an anti-tram campaigner to make the whole thing look shoddy.

2 - Quite real, and very worrying for Edinburgh and its taxpayers if it is.

The mockups do look like a B-Movie version of Thomas The Tank Engine. No, that's an insult to Thomas the Tank Engine, it looks like it was designed by someone's 4 year old son.

Even Ronald Villier's website is better than this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/tv/chewinthefat/ronald_vill...) and that's an intentional poor effort!

Does someone want to own up and confess making a terrible amateur Tram website on purpose?

#42 they don't have a protramLINE agenda its just anti anything SNP. Like all New Labour supporters they just can't comprehend the fact that New Labour are no longer in power in Scotland.

#13

This was a private consortium proposal for a tram system before the council took on the idea. It is a pretty old site. As it says on one of the pages:-

"NETCo is a private sector venture that has been promoting just such a tramway since 1998. In that time we have helped convert the Council to trams and they liked our route so much they adopted it themselves."

#4 Give it up, you are getting very boring with the same link on every tram story.

http://www.tiedinburgh.co.uk/tie_pro_trams.html

This looks more like the official website. You don't get much for £100m these days.

48

An old site it may be - but websites didn't look that bad in 1998 either.

The photos were clearly done by an amatuer using Paintbrush. Any self respecting private consortium would have been ashamed of that website in 2007, 1998 or 1990 when the WWW first appeared!

Did they ask the shop keepers up Leith Walk, where the trams will cause havoc with traffic flow?

And Ferry Road where displaced traffic will have to travel? More cars - aaargh - It's already bad along this route.

Did they ask the shop keeps along Easter Road, where the displaced traffic will make it impossible to stop? They will love this (NOT).

And what about the businesses in the south of the city, they will not benefit from the tram. And the ones in the East - they will not benefit either.

Gorgy Road, Corstorphine, Morningside, Newington -nope!

Dalry Road...er...nope!

I think that everyones agreed that traffic congestion is going to get worse. The question is how are we going to tackle it. In a modern city we have to get people moving quickly and efficiently.

Buses / trolley buses aren't the answer, Princes Street already is one long bus queue. A dedicated tram system has to be the way.

Yes it is expensive, yes it will cause short term problems with road works etc, but after that we will have a transport system that will take us well into the future. Rather than scrap it, which is a terribly short term view, I reckon it should be built and then expanded. Lets not chose mediocrity and second best. Lets get the system that is right and fitting for the financial hub of Scotland, and lets look at expanding the network once we are happy that it works.

This is not just an Edinburgh issue but a Scotland issue. Edinburgh is the lheart of the nation, if it fails then so does Scotland.

#46 Aloysius Munn - hi there - you ask who Transform Scotland are. Go to their website and see who their members are, then you will understand why they go on about trams!

http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/members/members.html

11 PeterPete - please tell us how much RBS and Harvey Nicks are contributing to the Edinburgh Tram Project.

You state "Developers along the route have to pay contributions towards the tram as they will benefit...".

Actually, you will find that it is only developers and businesses adjacent or near the route that seek planning permission, who are contributing. The Council grants planning consent and impose a tram contribution requirement (which is probably open to legal challenge, as it is doubtful if the Council could justify that it is absolutely necessary).

Hence, there are many businesses that are adjacent or near the tram routes that could potentially benefit but will contribute nothing.

As for Edinburgh Council - it is supposed to contribute £45 million.

Some £15m is to come from developer contributions (a mere 2.5% of the £592m total). Hence, there is a desire for the Council to actively grant planning consents.

Some is to come from the sale of Council land (asset stripping?).

Some from CEC land contributions (ie the value of land the Council owns and on which the trams will run).

Some from using anticipated development gain from Council-owned land (ie gambling that the value of Council land will go up and borrowing against that.)

Here's hoping SNP can hold sway & get this stoopid TRAM stopped dead in it's tracks.
The naysayers will get no pleasure in a couple of years time after we have gone through hell (& a bundle of extra taxpayers money) only to say " we told you so".
Stop this madness now !!!! The traffic can be managed better now that Andrew Burns & his cronies are out of power.

What do RBS, HBOS & Lloyds TSB all have in common?

Answer, they all recognise a project which will be a vast waste of money when they see one!

Goat Boy # 51, that's a brave name to put up when you're posting comments on this website.

Errr, Corstorphine is where the tram actually goes through so they will benefit. And Dalry Road intersects with the line so they will as well. Have you lived here long???

And what about the areas which will not benefit? I don't really get the point you're making.

Its unsurprising that Standard life are taking the line that is contrary to the SNP position.

From where I am sitting it looks like RBS, HBoS and Lloyds TSB obviously have much more sense and less of a political axe to grind.

As #57 says, the companies who are saying nothing about it are the ones with clear financial and economic sense..

Should it go ahead, the tram system would be the most disasterous thing ever to happen in Edinburgh.

All we can do now is hope that on wednesday, common sense prevails and the trams are kicked into touch for good.

Fingers crossed..

A tram from leith via princes street to the airport - F@ck me! for £600m we should expect it to link to the NY underground system - It’s not worth the cost - just like almost EVERY item in harvey nics !

We already have a commendable service running on this route - just replace the bus engines with nitrogen units - and bobs yer auntie

Business has only one interest at heart - it’s own profit and cares little for the mass populace - everybody from Sighthill, Craigmiller, Pilton, Leith, Broomhouse, Granton, Drylaw etc etc - see you in Harvey Nics this weekend - I feel Gentryfied !

Just say no to trams !

Julian (58) - The tram line is to run from Edinburgh Park Station, along the guided bus corridor from Saughton to Balgreen (stops to be at "South Gyle" and "Saughton" - quite a walking distance for anyone from Corstorphine.

The tram will then run beside the railway to Haymarket and so will not intersect with Dalry Road. In fact, the one stop in that area is described as "Murrayfield" so I don't see many people from Dalry making that hike on a regular basis if they have the choice of several bus services on Dalry Road.

REFERENDUM NOW....no more talk ,let the people decide.

#62: Sarah B - Thank you. I wasn't going to bother with a response to post 58.

I wonder how long Julian has lived in Edinburgh, and I wonder if he/she has taken the time to look at the route before they added their comment.

If more people looked at the proposal and considered the problems that the tram will bring, they too will oppose the tram.

Some people must have had one of the "Leader's Report" emails this morning from the Council, containing a link to a pro-trams advert which apparently is appearing in the press from today (it's unclear who is paying for the advert):

http://www.leaders-report.co.uk/leaders/images/TramsforEd...

It seems the absolute ultimate reason to have trams is as follows:

"More 'me' time
Time is precious to us all. To be able to spend less of it travelling and more of it enjoying ourselves is a key benefit that trams will bring to Edinburgh. Trams are much quicker than other forms of transport, giving us the freedom to have a little more 'me' time to do whatever we feel like, such as spending longer in bed!"

has any of the tram supporters read the businness report, or looked at the finacial costings, i have and they dont stack up, by the way the council applyed a section seventy five to the various business on the route of the trams, it will be several years before the trams go along corstorphine and in to the west end by that time it will be cheaper to buy a bentley for every one maybe not a bentley but a ford.

Sarah B. If the tram line is stopping at Haymarket then that means it crosses the end of Dalry road. If that is not technically the same as intersect then that's just a technicality.

On Cortsorphine, I accept it doesn't actually run through that area but, if it goes along the guided bus corridor then it's within 5 minutes walking distance for at least half the residents.