Soaring costs and years of delay. Is the North Bridge saga in its final chapter?

Inquiry likely into decades of neglect that left landmark to crumble, writes Sarah McArthur

“It’s the 9th of July, about four, five - God knows, who remembers - years since they started this building work” says a young Edinburgh resident, filmed in front of the Balfour Beatty barriers on a rainy North Bridge. They become louder as they gesture wildly to the “diabolical conditions that civilians have to walk through, trying to navigate our way around tourists… what if there was an emergency and I had to get from A to B in a timely manner?”

The video is part of the tongue-in-cheek Free North Bridge social media campaign, which has attracted nearly 2000 followers since April this year, using humour to make its point. While the young campaigners’ cries of “Tear down the scaffolding” and “Make North Bridge naked again” are clearly ludicrous, they play deliberately on the sense of farce we all feel about the six years (and counting) of disruption to the busy corridor between the Old and New Town. 

And let’s be clear here, no-one is criticising those carrying out the work right now for the problems encountered, which have been a long time in the making.

It feels like a lifetime ago that the whole debacle began in 2018, when we naively believed what we were then told, that the renovation would last 2 years and cost a mere £22 million. It is somewhat laughable, if not depressing, to see the bridge still smothered in scaffolding, and costing a colossal £86 million. 

And it’s important to note that the outgoing current transport convener, himself a qualified civil engineer, believes questions should be asked as to how the bridge came to fall into such disrepair, and a formal investigation may be required to provide the answers.

A post from the satirical Free North Bridge Instagram account

A landmark worth saving

“I think it’s true that it would have been cheaper and quicker to just demolish the bridge and reconstruct it, but it is a landmark in the city… I think we’ve got a duty to hand these things on to future generations,” said transport convener Cllr Scott Arthur, due to leave his council role shortly to take up his new job as MP for Edinburgh South West.