MORE than a third of the money available for the city's £512 million tram project has been spent without a single piece of track being laid, according to new figures obtained by the Evening News.
The current total outlay for the Newhaven to Edinburgh Airport line is £177m, with around half of that having been spent on construction.
Details released by tram firm TIE following a freedom of information request show it has spent £1.5m on comm
unications, nearly £18m on land compensation deals and £34m on the tram design process.
The project is thought to be broadly on budget, but delays on utility works in Leith and the recent traffic diversion debacle on The Mound have dented reserves.
Business groups and tram critics today questioned the amount of money that had already been paid out.
But TIE defended the project, saying it still expected the line to be finished by 2011 and at the current £512m price tag.
Councillor Nick Elliott-Cannon, the SNP's finance spokesman, said: "It is scary how much money was spent on the project without a shovel going into the ground.
"While there are a lot of things you can't factor for in a job of this scale without actually starting, a third of the money is gone without a single track in place.
"They seem to have spent a great deal of money on design and modelling but have still managed to get so many things wrong.
"I am deeply worried about the whole project coming in on budget."
Over the summer, the price of the tram line rose from £498m to £512m due to increased costs and currency fluctuations.
The project still has an overall funding pot of £545m left, of which £96m is regarded as a "contingency" reserve.
However, tram bosses have still to pay out for the bulk of the contracts to build the tram line and wires, as well as the tram cars.
These contracts are thought to total around £300m.
Gordon Burgess, chairman of the traders association for Leith Walk and Constitution Street, said: "They've not exactly had good value for money from this £1.5m spent on communications.
"The communications started off quite well but it has really deteriorated.
"The third time they closed off Jane Street, all we got was two days' notice with a flyer."
More than £80m had been spent on the tram scheme by the time it was given final approval by the SNP Government in 2007. This included a £100,000 advertising campaign to win the "hearts and minds" of the public.
A spokesman for TIE said: "The total public spend profile of the project is now one third complete. This includes costs associated with contract procurement, land purchase, design and planning.
"The construction is now 20 per cent complete and the project is on plan to commence a revenue service for the full network in July 2011."
