Granton.
The connection
we must not
leave behind.

The tram is part of the neighbourhood.

There is something backwards about planning a low-car neighbourhood and then treating its public transport connection as the optional bit.

Granton Waterfront has been planned around the assumption of a tram. It is part of how the neighbourhood is supposed to work. People need to get to work, get to college, reach appointments and get home again. They need a connection to the rest of Edinburgh that is more than a line on a masterplan.[1]

The officers’ recommendation going to committee on 10 September would put the southern extension first, with further work on the northern routes required. The Royal Infirmary and BioQuarter need better connections. So does Granton. The city should not need to turn that into a competition between the people who use them.[4]

Granton should not keep being the place Edinburgh will get round to later.

Build the homes. Build the connection.

The council’s waterfront programme proposes around 3,500 homes. Its first phase has planning permission for 847, including 214 for social rent and 173 for mid-market rent. That is a substantial new neighbourhood. It needs to function like one.[10][11]

It makes no sense to encourage people to live with fewer cars while leaving the transport that supports that choice permanently unresolved. A low-car neighbourhood needs more than low parking provision. It needs useful alternatives.

Granton already has residents, businesses and a community. They deserve better connections now. The new homes make the need to plan properly more urgent, not less.

For me, this comes down to what people can actually do from their front door. Which jobs can they reach? Can they get to college without the journey taking over their day? Can they visit friends, go out for dinner or get to an appointment without organising a lift?

The tram is not a substitute for schools, affordable housing or local services. It is part of the same job: building somewhere people can live well.

And success should mean the people already there get to share in it. Better connections should make Granton a better place to live, not just a more expensive place to buy.

Their future homes are not there yet. Their future still counts.

This is the part of the debate I think Edinburgh is getting badly wrong.

The people who live along a proposed route can organise around it today. They know where they live, what they value and what they stand to lose. They can attend meetings, contact councillors and respond as residents of that place.

But who speaks for the person who will move into an affordable home in Granton in ten years? What about the teenager who will need to get to an apprenticeship? The person currently renting somewhere else who hopes to make their home here? The household that would rather not have the cost of a car built into every decision?

Their transport choices are being decided before they can speak as the residents who will have to live with them. That matters. Edinburgh is making decisions with consequences stretching well beyond the people who happen to be in the room today.

Young people and people building their working lives have a huge stake in this. A useful transport network affects where they can work, what they can study and how much independence they have. Those are not abstract benefits. They shape the choices available to someone starting out.

The same connection matters to someone getting to hospital, visiting family or staying involved in the city after retirement. This is about making everyday life easier, not deciding that one person’s time matters more than another’s. Disabled people, carers and people seeking work belong in that picture too.

Granton and District Community Council has already argued against deprioritising the northern extension, speaking up for both existing and future communities.[12]

Listening to current residents matters. Planning for future residents matters too. We cannot make the first group visible and treat the second as though they do not count yet.

A city has to plan for more people than the people who answered its latest consultation.

Learn from the failure. Don’t stop building.

The original tram project was a mess. Edinburgh knows that. Businesses endured disruption, the city endured delays, and we got less than we were promised.

The airport–York Place line opened in May 2014, rather than the airport–Newhaven service originally expected in 2011. Lord Hardie’s inquiry identified failures in governance, design, procurement, reporting and risk management.[13][14]

That history matters. It should change how Edinburgh delivers major projects. But it cannot be the only part of the history we are willing to remember.

The later Newhaven extension opened to passengers on 7 June 2023. The council reported that it was delivered within its £207.3 million budget and scheduled completion window. Across the tram network, the operator recorded 12.5 million journeys in calendar 2025.[16][17][18]

To me, leaving Granton waiting again would be a failure on a par with the original build: another generation promised a connection and left without it. Edinburgh should pursue the whole north–south line, with Granton central to its delivery.

Waiting will not freeze today’s prices. The business case already models higher cash costs when construction spending falls in future years. Delaying Granton leaves the city exposed to further cost increases before shovels reach the ground, while residents go without the connection. Repeating that delay would be an expensive mistake.[6]

But there is a difference between learning from a failure and using it as a permanent reason never to build anything again.

We should not have to lose it to see its value.

This summer, we got a very clear reminder of why the tram matters.

The fire at the former Debenhams building on Princes Street on 9 July interrupted the tram connection towards Leith and Newhaven. Work to make the damaged building safe kept the street closed. Normal services returned on 29 August.[19]

Buses still ran. People could still walk and cycle. But listen to the businesses describing what losing the tram did to their summer trade.

These are the people running the bookshops, cafés, pubs and restaurants that make a neighbourhood worth visiting. They were telling us that the connection mattered to their trade.

That should be part of how we talk about transport investment. Not just tracks and vehicles, but customers arriving, friends meeting for a drink, someone browsing a bookshop and staying for a coffee.

Leith’s experience gives the Granton argument something concrete. A connection to the wider city is not just about getting residents out in the morning. It is also about bringing people in, making local businesses easier to reach and giving a neighbourhood a place in the life of Edinburgh.

We should not need to switch the trams off to admit that they matter.

The closure also exposed a weakness that needs fixing: the network needs another way through. Completing the loop from the city’s west end through Granton to Newhaven would provide a route around Princes Street, connecting the airport side of the network with Leith when the central route is blocked. That is another reason to build the Granton connection and plan for the waterfront link: expansion and resilience should go together.[4]

There are real choices to make. Make them.

The plans retain walking and cycling through the Roseburn corridor alongside the tram. I think that needs to be much more prominent in this discussion, because it changes the argument quite considerably. We are not being asked to choose between having a tram and being able to walk or cycle through Roseburn. The proposal includes both.[9]

People can still object to how the corridor would change. But keeping it exactly as it is and retaining it as an active-travel route are two different things. Personally, I think using it to connect Granton to the tram network, while keeping walking and cycling, is a good use of that space.

Roseburn gives the tram a route separated from general traffic. The alternative through Orchard Brae takes it onto streets and across Dean Bridge, with the road-space and reliability issues that brings. For something people will depend on to get to work every day, that matters.[9][6]

There is also a substantial difference in cost. The early estimates for the northern extension are up to £800 million through Roseburn, compared with up to £1.2 billion through Orchard Brae, including risk allowances.[6]

Take the whole line forward.

The September business case puts an initial northern extension at up to £0.8 billion via Roseburn, or up to £1.2 billion via Orchard Brae, in early estimates at 2025/26 prices including risk and optimism bias.[6]

Those are serious sums. They need a serious funding and delivery plan.

They also need to be discussed accurately. The full north–south scheme is a different project scope, with early estimates of £2.49 billion via Roseburn or £2.91 billion via Orchard Brae, including continuation beyond the BioQuarter to Shawfair. Those figures are not the price of the Granton section alone.[6]

The north–south tram is an investment in the Edinburgh we are building: new homes in Granton, better access to the Western General, and a stronger connection to the Royal Infirmary and BioQuarter. The business case gives the city a foundation to turn that ambition into a funded programme.

Edinburgh should take the whole line forward. Bringing the northern and southern sections through design and funding together would give Granton’s residents and future households a clear place in the programme from the start.

A coordinated programme can prepare utilities, organise construction and support local businesses as the route takes shape. Safe walking and cycling connections, accessible stops, affordable fares and coordinated buses should make the investment work for the whole journey.

That is the plan I support: a complete north–south connection, with a delivery team, funding plan and milestones that carry both ends towards construction. The city has built on its tram network before. It can do it again.

Construction can proceed in stages within that commitment. Each stage should bring the whole line closer, with Granton’s route and timetable built into the programme. Keep the work moving, secure the funding and get the line built.

Choose the route. Build the Granton tram.

The point is not to win an argument about trams. It is to make Edinburgh work better for the people who live here.

It is someone getting to work. A young person reaching college. A visit to a hospital, a café or a friend. It is being able to make a home in Granton without needing a car to reach the rest of the city.

Existing residents deserve that consideration. So do the people who will join them.

Edinburgh is deciding what kind of neighbourhood they will inherit before all of them have the chance to take part in the argument. That should make us more ambitious about their future, not more willing to put it off.

Choose the route. Put the funding and delivery plan together. Build the Granton tram.