Outcry as traders told they're too late to catch tram payout

TRADERS facing disruption from Edinburgh's trams works have hit out after being told some will miss out on compensation because they opened less than 21 months ago.

Shops and bars which were set up after April 2006 have discovered they are not eligible for compensation from trams firm TIE.

The cut-off date was agreed by the council and the city's Chamber of Commerce to coincide with the date the £498 million scheme won parliamentary approval. But traders said they would be hit just as hard as any others and that the trams were far from a done deal until only a few months ago.

However, TIE has hit back, saying businesses opening on Leith Walk in the last 18 months would have been aware of the prospect of disruption from the trams.

TIE is offering compensation of up to £4000 to the worst-hit businesses, on top of a rates rebate for which all businesses affected by the construction of the airport-to-Newhaven link can apply.

Mark Anderson, owner of Shore Sounds Music on Leith Walk's Crighton Place, said: "I opened in August 2006 and I am going to have as much disruption as the more established businesses on this street but I won't be able to get the compensation. I am losing thousands a month. We do a lot of guitar lessons and bookings are down. I think people are put off by the roadworks and worry about things like parking."

Publican Mike Christopherson criticised the cut-off date. One of his establishments, the Victoria Bar, will miss out as it opened in November 2006. Another of his pubs, Boda, 300 yards along the street, will qualify, as it opened in 2004. He said: "When we took on the Victoria in 2006 there was no way you could say the tram was definitely going ahead and even in May last year the SNP said they would get rid of them."

Work to move utility pipes and lay tramlines on Leith Walk began in August. The programme of tram roadworks will take more than three years to complete.

Graham Russell, chairman of the FSB Edinburgh branch, said: "Everyone is suffering the same level of disruption no matter how long they have been trading.

"In a dynamic trading area like Leith Walk I would imagine this will affect quite a lot of businesses that have come into the area."

Willie Gallagher, chairman of TIE Limited, said: "Those businesses opening on the route after April 1 2006 did so with the full knowledge of the tram project's approval and were therefore able to balance that in their decision making. It is right that businesses that did not have this opportunity be compensated."

Ron Hewitt, chief executive of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce, said: "We worked long and hard to negotiate a scheme to protect retailers from the negative impacts of the tram scheme construction on business.

"To us it seems entirely reasonable to draw the line at those who started business along the line with the knowledge that the tram scheme was approved."