Judge Rinder might have been a better choice for Edinburgh tram inquiry – Helen Martin

BACK in the late 20th century, Edinburgh faced a big mystery. Introducing trams to the Capital was supposed to cost around £375 million. Some of us were appalled by such a spend and hoped the plan would be abandoned.

Eventually the trams started rolling around, some people loved them, some cyclists hated them, some had no reason to use them, and some whose businesses had been hacked by the construction vowed never to set foot on them. But the job was done.

Unfortunately, the total was about £1 billion including the addition of interest payments. Hence the public inquiry into how it took so long (six years) and cost so much was set up. Funnily enough that’s taken another six years and so far has cost another £10.6m.

Former Lord Advocate Lord Hardie is the guy in charge. He’s such a legal genius he is described as “robust” and will seek every letter, document, report, no matter how long it takes.

International inquiries might take that long. Thirteen World War II Nuremburg trials of Nazis took four years. The Heathrow Terminal 5 planning inquiry took eight years. The Hillsborough timeline was, to be fair, 25 years. The Grenfell Tower inquiry began in September 2017 and who knows how long that will go on?

Lord Hardie is a good man bound to total accuracy and detail, perhaps too good, too professional and too highly-rated for our one-line Edinburgh tram system. Perhaps another option would have been a Sheriff, or Judge Rinder.

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