Late Trams

Council meeting finished late last night. The vote took place after 11pm, with the meeting having started at 10am (with several unnecessary breaks built in). I'm not convinced that the best decisions are made at the end of a such a long session. Also, unusually, none of the five political parties combined their amendments and this resulted in the Lib Dem position being carried. Therefore, the Council are now committed to take the tram line to St Andrew's Square and need to find more than £200m in the next 2 months to pay for it. Big ask, eh ? To be fair, the Council can't afford any of the three options presented in the report ; cancellation, Haymarket or St Andrew's Square. The Labour Group proposal was to commit to Haymarket (from within existing funding) and an incremental approach thereafter as and when more funding becomes available. We were finally defeated 16 - 15 by the Lib Dems. Nobody knows where the additional money is to come from but I suspect the Council's debt levels and repayment commitments are about to get another hammering.