Millions spent on threatened Nottingham tram schemes
- Published
Lines Two and Three of the scheme are under review
More than £28m has been spent on the preparation and planning for Phase Two of Nottingham's tram scheme even though no track has been laid, it has emerged.
Line One of the city's tram scheme has been running for six years, but an extension of the project is now under review by the coalition government.
Costs of £28.8m have included studies, design costs and economic appraisals.
City transport chief, councillor Jane Urquhart, said scrapping the scheme would be "enormously wasteful".
A further £7m has already been set aside for the scheme.
Ms Urquhart said: "Building two new lines of a tram is a huge and complicated business.
"We have to design the route and people know there are every detailed designs already of where lines two and three will go.
"This is a multi-million-pound scheme, it's an enormous scheme which will bring immense economic benefits to our city, it's right that we plan it properly.
Ms Urquhart said money had come from the city council, the county council, central government and the East Midlands Development Agency along with some developers who would have sites along the proposed routes.
She said it would be a "great shame" if the tram did not get the go-ahead.
"There has been an enormous amount of work, all of the work done has been about the route and the engineering," she said.
"I think it would be enormously wasteful to say, 'let's stop now'."
Last month Nottingham MP Anna Soubry called for the planned £400m extension to Nottingham's tram system to be scrapped.
The two new routes to the city's tram system would run from Clifton via Wilford and from Chilwell via Beeston.
The new 6.2m (10km) Chilwell via Beeston route would serve the Meadows, the ng2 development site, Queen's Medical Centre, University of Nottingham, Science Park, Beeston town centre and Chilwell before terminating at a park-and-ride site near the A52, close to junction 25 of the M1.
The 4.6m (7.5km) Clifton route would serve the Meadows, Wilford/Ruddington Lane and the Clifton Estate before terminating at a park-and-ride site near the A453, close to junction 24 of the M1.