Edinburgh Tram Inquiry: Costs reach £7.2m

The cost of the inquiry into why the Edinburgh tram project was over budget has now reached £7.2m, the Scottish government has revealed.

The inquiry cost has increased by £1.2m since the public hearing began under Lord Hardie on 5 September.

The inquiry was established in June 2014 to find out why the tram project was £400m over budget and was completed five years late.

An Edinburgh Tram Inquiry spokeswoman said it was making "good progress".

It is investigating what went wrong with the £776m project.

It is not known how long Lord Hardie will continue hearing oral evidence.

A spokeswoman from the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry said: "All efforts are being made to ensure the inquiry delivers best value for the public purse and we continue to make good progress in line with the published order of events."

The tram project was first mooted in 2003 when the Labour-led Scottish executive proposed building a network of tram lines at a cost of £375m by 2009.

When the SNP minority government was elected in 2007, they planned to scrap the project.

But that decision was overturned when the other parties in the Scottish Parliament voted in favour of pressing ahead.

After that, the government said it would not provide additional funding beyond the £500m committed by MSPs.

By the time the first trams started running on the 8.7mile (14km) route in May 2014, the total cost of the project had reached £776m.