Leith Businesses continue to struggle as tram extensions from York Place to Newhaven drag on

Independent businesses on Leith Walk struggle against tram work disruption as they wonder when the project may finally come to an end.

Leith Walk - ALAMY

An extension of the existing Edinburgh Tram network, ‘Trams to Newhaven’, was begun in November 2019 in a bid to connect Leith and Newhaven to the West end of Edinburgh with eight new stops.

Three years on, businesses situated on the new Edinburgh tram route continue to face regular and significant disruption, despite previous expectations that all major construction would be complete by the end of 2022.

Leith Walk, ironically the street that saw Scotland’s first electric tram in 1905, has borne the brunt of the upheaval caused by the Trams to Newhaven project. The extension, as well as the Coronavirus pandemic, has had a significant impact on small and local businesses situated on the Walk.

Shamsu Yusof, owner of Folly Antiques said: ‘With covid, lockdown and the tram works, it’s been almost three years disruption. It’s just been one delay after another’.

Preliminary works to Leith Walk started in November 2019, though were suspended between March and June 2020 due to Covid-19.

Despite the thirteen-week shutdown, Transport and Environment convenor Scott Arthur stated in July: ‘All utility diversions are complete, and the contractor has laid almost 4,300 metres of track slab, 93 per cent of the total’.

Such progress has not, however, come without a cost to local businesses.

Yusof has highlighted the impact construction work on Leith Walk has had on his vintage and antique furniture business:

‘You can’t park, so the customers can’t come to your shop because they can’t park anywhere’. ‘We have a lot of problems with deliveries as well. Taking deliveries of furniture is the main problem, and sending furniture to customers is also a big problem’.

Yusof has been forced to alter his business model due to road works and parking restrictions outside his shop:

‘We’ve reduced the number of furniture so we are basically concentrating on small items at the moment where people can just pick it up and go. But they can’t have big items’.

Patrick Kavanagh, owner of Leith Depot bar and restaurant, has faced similar challenges:

‘It’s obviously been quite difficult. It’s more for loading and deliveries, and communication on when the road is going to be opened up. But I think it’ll be worth it when it’s done’.

Speaking to Edinburgh City Council this September, Transport and Environment Convenor Scott Arthur said:

‘I look forward to working with the team at Edinburgh Trams in the coming months to take passengers all the way to Newhaven in Spring 2023. Trams to Newhaven is on target to deliver a low-carbon, high capacity, and clean mode of transport to the north of the city’.

Despite Edinburgh Council’s clear ambitions to deliver the new, green transport in time for Spring 2023, business owners remain sceptical.

Yusof of Folly Antiques commented on the Councils predictions:

‘at the rate things are going, everybody burst out laughing when we heard that’.

Small businesses on the Walk remain frustrated; A number of businesses owners were unwilling to comment on the impact construction work has had on their shops, fatigued by snagging and defect works to the Trams to Newhaven project as well as the ongoing inquiry into the original Edinburgh Tram project, which was significantly reduced in scope, heavily delayed and over budget.

In their October newsletter, Trams to Newhaven said that to date, 96% of track slab has been laid, maintaining that trams are scheduled to be operational in Leith and Newhaven by Spring 2023.

Kavanagh of Leith Depot bar and restaurant remains positive: ‘I think it will connect the city a bit more to Leith’. In true Leither fashion, he adds: ‘It’s been challenging, but that’s what we do down here, we rise to the challenge’.