Councillors in Edinburgh have voted to press ahead with the southern half of a planned tram extension while placing the northern route to Granton on hold, a move opponents said would leave one of the city’s poorest districts waiting years for better public transport. The council’s Transport and Environment Committee agreed to advance the north-south expansion to its next planning stage, but recommended the two sections be treated as separate projects rather than built at the same time.
Under the plan, the priority is the southern leg toward the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, where thousands of staff and patients would gain a direct link to the network. The northern extension to Granton has been paused after councillors said no agreed route had been found through the Roseburn Path, a green corridor whose future has divided residents and campaigners. Some locals backed the tram as a spur to regeneration, while environmental groups objected to building over the greenspace.
Council officers warned that the wider scheme, estimated at around 3 billion pounds, could not be financed by the city alone. They said delivery would depend on support from SEStransit, the regional transport body, and on funding from the Scottish Government. A decision on whether the council would need to provide match funding may follow a report from SEStransit expected in autumn 2027.
The pause drew a sharp response from Granton, the site of a 1.8 billion pound waterfront regeneration billed as one of Scotland’s largest, which is set to deliver thousands of homes in an area marked by high deprivation. Fred Marinello, who chairs the Granton and District Community Council, said years of planning had been set aside and warned the community could be locked out for probably another 20 years. Green councillor Kayleigh Kinross-O’Neill called the decision premature and questioned whether the line would be built in her lifetime.
The recommendation was backed by seven councillors from the SNP, Labour and the Greens, while Conservative members opposed it and Liberal Democrats pushed for alternative routes to be examined. Stephen Jenkinson, the SNP transport convener, said he hoped the northern leg could still be delivered, telling the committee that his preference was that at some time in the future the council would be able to move forward and deliver it. Green councillor Chas Booth cautioned that putting the northern section to Granton on ice risked further disadvantaging some of the city’s most deprived communities.
