FORTH PORTS is set to make a multi-million-pound contribution to the cost of the city’s tram line.

The port authority has begun talks with council chiefs over how much land and cash it will put towards the 498 million line linking Newhaven to the airport.

Organisations who will benefit from trams running alongside their developments are contributing towards the cost. The tram will run past Leith Docks, where Forth Ports has huge plans to redevelop over the next 30 years with homes, offices and leisure facilities.

The council has banked only 2.2m of developer contributions but is confident the rest will follow in the coming years. Officials are also exploring other ways to raise money to cover overruns from line 1a or put towards line 1b - a spur from Haymarket to the Granton waterfront development.

These include selling council land along the tram route, which will become more valuable if the scheme gets the green light from councillors on Thursday.

Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, the city’s finance leader, said:

“Money from developers will play a big part in the city’s contribution but we are also looking at other funding streams.”

A council report this month said the authority is preparing to borrow between 20m and 30m against expected contributions.

A final figure on the amount needing to be borrowed is likely to be revealed in December, though councillors’ approval for the loan will be sought on Thursday.

Councillor Cameron Rose, the city’s Tory finance spokesman, said: “There is an established principle of developers contributing to the tram scheme and we need to ensure that is followed through to its full extent.

“The business case looks very encouraging but we can’t afford to dither over committing to line 1b, particularly if the contributions start coming in.”

Although relocation of pipes and water mains has been taking place across the city since April, construction of the actual tram lines will not start until next February. The public opening is set for February 25, 2011.

Councillor Maggie Chapman, the city’s Green transport spokesman, said:

“I would like to see the council putting more pressure on developers in terms of getting these contributions in place, especially for line 1b.”

A spokesman for Forth Ports said: “There will be a significant financial and land contribution from Forth Ports but talks with the council are ongoing.”

Related topics

- «news.scotsman.com»
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=607
- «business.scotsman.com»
http://business.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=1409

It was Thursday afternoon around 4:30, and I couldnt take it anymore. All week long Id been sporadically watching Rupert Murdochs new Fox Business channel, which started Monday, trying to figure out what, exactly, it was trying to do - and who its audience was supposed to be.

It wasnt an easy task. One minute Fox was doing a segment that included a $1 million diamond; the next it was giving tips on how to avoid foreclosure. It would home in for a few minutes on the stock market, and then spend the next several hours on the death of a teenager in Virginia from a staph infection, which included several truly silly efforts to frame the tragedy as a business story.

The only commonality was tone. In a week when Countrywide Financials chief executive was discovered to be under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and evidence emerged that the housing slump was deepening, the tone at Fox Business was upbeat. Relentlessly, incorrigibly, unapologetically upbeat.

Then, Thursday afternoon, Fox aired what it trumpeted as a “rare live interview” with Warren Buffett. The interviewer, Liz Claman, who joined Fox Business from CNBC, promised a rock em, sock em interview in which she vowed to ask “the greatest investor of all time,” as Fox anchors kept calling him, tough questions. But once the cameras rolled, she turned positively giddy. “Im so happy to be part of Fox Business,” she said breathlessly - and her hardball questions for Buffett turned to mush.

Finally, I just muted the television and started writing this column. But I would occasionally glance up at the little headlines that were running under the interview. “Thinks Coca-Cola is a great business,” read one. “Newspaper industry has changed in the last 30 yrs,” read another. “Buying on margin is crazy.” To which the only appropriate response is: “Duh!”

I know, I know: it is completely unfair to judge a new cable channel by its first week. What was ESPN like its first week? Or CNN? Or, for that matter, CNBC - the business channel Fox Business is taking dead aim at? Openings are never pretty, and programming evolves as the new channel finds its footing.

“My core talent is that Im a pretty good TV producer,” Roger Ailes said the other day. Ailes had made his name as a take-no-prisoners adman for a series of Republican presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush. He then was called in by NBC to retool its business channel, CNBC, in the mid-1990s, introducing programs with distinct identities and narrowing its focus to the stock market.

When Ailes left CNBC in 1996, he first plotted the rise of Fox News, and now he is doing the same with the week-old Fox Business. Given what he did at Fox News - where he used a combination of vitriol and flag-waving to make Fox the No. 1 all-news channel, surpassing the longtime leader, CNN - no one takes Ailes lightly, least of all the folks at CNBC.

So far, though, the main thing Ailes has succeeded in doing is throw mud at his new competition. This is something he has always been very good at: Nobody, but nobody, enjoys getting under the skin of the competition like Ailes. “Its what he lives for,” said David Faber, a CNBC star reporter.

On Monday, for instance, Bill Carter of The New York Times, which publishes the International Herald Tribune, ran a story accusing CNBC of copying Fox before it was even on the air by making such moves as labeling itself “Americas Business Channel.”

When I spoke to Ailes this week, he was no less inflammatory: “Theyve decided recently that America is not such a terrible place and capitalism wasnt so bad. They used to get really excited if a CEO was going to jail and they got depressed if a company announced a profit. They are offended by rich people unless its them.”

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes watching CNBC knows these allegations are laughable; it would be hard to imagine a channel more pro-profits than CNBC. But Ailes needs a way to differentiate his David from their Goliath, and this was one of his tried and true tacks: accuse the other side of a lack of patriotism. “We dont view capitalism, corporations or profits as the enemy,” he said.

Neil Cavuto, the star anchor and managing editor of Fox Business, sought to differentiate the new station in another way. “We dont use jargon, and we dont use analysts,” he said. “Were not afraid to defy what seems to be conventional wisdom. Lets not buy lock, stock and barrel what everyone else says. Lets not assume that all mortgages are melting down and all companies are crooked.”

A CYCLIST knocked off his bike by a council minibus has won 61,600 damages after a judge rejected claims he had staged a “pretend” fall.

Former caretaker George Johnston, 63, was hit by the bus as he cycled home through Oxgangs in 2004, but the case has only just been resolved at the Court of Session.

As a result of the fall, Mr Johnston’s artificial hip joint, fitted two years before the accident, worked loose and he needed another operation.

It was claimed that without the injury, the Prestonfield man would have been able to keep on working until he was 65 years old.

The court heard that at the time of the accident, council driver Daniel Toorish, of Duddingston Road South, had taken the Renault bus home during his lunch-break and was going across town to pick up disabled passengers.

Mr Toorish told the court that he was in front of Mr Johnston’s bicycle and stopped at the junction, very near the kerb. The cyclist attempted to go past but hit the bus.

He insisted that Mr Johnston had then “staged” a fall that he described as “a pathetic stumble . . . the most pathetic fall you would imagine”. The driver also described the cyclist’s ordeal as a “comedy act”.

Lawyers for the council, contesting the action, said Mr Toorish was an experienced driver, and pointed out Mr Johnston had cycled away without trying to blame the driver at the time. His evidence was inconsistent with someone who had been knocked off a bike, they argued.

Finding in favour of the cyclist, Lord McEwan said he believed Mr Johnston’s contention that “rage and adrenalin allowed him to cycle home”.

In a written opinion, Lord McEwan remarked: “What happened as they each went on their way is a matter of acute disagreement and there can be no escape from the conclusion that one of them has been untruthful.”

Mr Toorish, said the judge, was “an aggressive and self-serving witness”.

The judge also said he accepted medical evidence that the artificial hip joint had been loosened by the bump and the damage had got worse.

Before the accident Mr Johnston had been fit and active and cycling 14 miles a day, the court heard.

Mr Johnston, of Paisley Crescent, last night welcomed the judgement.

He added: “I’d like to move on from it now. I had an accident and I got compensation for what happened. I don’t want to cause any trouble for the driver.”

Mr Johnston said as he turned left the minibus tried to overtake but clipped his right handlebar. He lost his balance and jumped clear to avoid the bicycle from falling on top of him, landing heavily on his left foot.