News.Scotland.Org

Scotland, Nov 2: Enormous amount of money was spent on the most speculated rail link project to Edinburgh Airport has been revealed. Major portion of the amount was washed-out for professional services like surveyors, lawyers and engineers.

Half of the total amount was used for technical advice as the project requires ground investigation because the tunnel is proposed to be built under the runway to a new station. £3.2m is used for this purpose. Another £500,000 was wasted for the public relation work of the scrapped Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL) project.

The project was dropped last month owing to the alternative solution concerning a railway station on the Edinburgh-Fife route near the Gogar roundabout. The authorities of TIE, the company that give shape to the project said today that the expense reflects its complexities, but the opposition politicians targeting at the wasted cash.

Meanwhile the transport spokesman Alex Johnstone MSP said: “Government needs to be more switched on when it comes to these sorts of projects because it has been proven that once they start the costs can spiral. The new scheme proposed for Gogar is much more sensible and manageable. It is just a pity that this wasn’t realised before all this money had been wasted.”

While commenting on this Paul Tetlaw, chairman of transport campaign group Transform Scotland said: “Lot of money is involved in this project but it gives hint about the nature of costs involved in these major projects. The professional expense for the transport projects in the UK is higher than what it is in Europe.”

The chairman of TIE, Willie Gallagher, the promoter of the EARL scheme said: “By a parliamentary process TIE was asked to take EARL and it was successfully undertaken. These costs reflect the task of taking an ambitious and complex project to the stage that MSPs could deliberate on it. Other costs involved are those incurred in closing down the project efficiently.”

The EARL project gains more importance during the Holyrood elections, The SNP faced the election on a promise to dump the EARL and the trams, but it stressed on the need for an alternative rail route to the airport. The government was compelled to accept setback on the trams but MSPs stand united on the EARL scheme’s revival.

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