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

Published 6 months ago • 1 min read

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.

The vehicle?
Of course…

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

Signed in 2006.
Cost? £375 million.
Opening date? 2011.

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 £1 billion — almost 3x the original.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare

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