Lawyers paradise - 7 years late, 3x the cost... and a city full of lawsuits


Edinburgh, Scotland.
Mid-2000s.
A shiny new tram network was promised.
Fast, green, world-class transport across the city.

Greta was not born yet… but she could be smiling for ours to a project like this.

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The vehicle?
Of course…

A complex PPP scheme led by Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (TIE) with multiple contractors, including Bilfinger Berger and Siemens.

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Signed in 2006.
Cost? ÂŁ375 million.
Opening date? 2011.

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What actually happened?

  • Endless disputes between the public agency and the private contractors.
  • Construction delays so bad that people literally forgot the city was supposed to have trams.
  • Streets ripped up for years, paralyzing local businesses.
  • Costs ballooned to ÂŁ1 billion — almost 3x the original.

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Lawyers paradise… Who sued who?

  • Contractors sued the public agency for design changes and late payments.
  • The public agency threatened to sue the contractors for cost overruns and missed deadlines.
  • Residents and businesses started separate lawsuits over lost income and disturbance.

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2014 — The first line finally opens.
Seven years late.
One single line instead of the full network.

The political fallout?

  • Heads rolled.
  • Public trust in PPPs collapsed.
  • Edinburgh became a punchline for bad project management across Europe.
  • Great was born… unhappy.

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Brutal lessons:

  • If the project scope isn’t 100% locked before signing, you're building a time bomb.
  • Multi-contractor PPPs need wartime-grade governance, not PowerPoint slides.
  • Political wishful thinking kills delivery discipline.
  • Litigation isn't a risk; it’s a certainty when your contract is a mess.

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Moral:
If your project needs seven years of excuses, lawsuits, and triple the money,
you didn’t build infrastructure.
You built a monument to failure.

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I have other interesting and horror stories about my last project in the link below.

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$99.90

The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare

Learn about:
The number 1 killer of Projects
Why this was not going to be just "another construction project, mate"... Read more

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Vicente Valencia

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