Edinburgh's tram inquiry report: After £13m and nearly ten years, should Lord Hardie's epic work see him immortalised in bronze? – John McLellan

Historic tram wheels buried underground for nearly 100 years, said the Evening News headline yesterday, and it is a neat idea to put the old cable hauling gear on show next to the new line to Newhaven.

But it got me thinking, will urban archaeologists be needed to unearth the Hardie tram inquiry report, from which little has been heard in six months? It was apparently reaching a conclusion in November when those likely to be criticised were given the chance to respond, with a deadline of the start of December, but since then nothing.

It’s taken nearly ten years to produce and cost £13m, and while I’ve not been able to discover the cost of Edinburgh’s original cable tram system, according to the Threadinburgh website, its Victorian horse-drawn precursor cost £300,000. So when Lord Hardie’s report eventually appears ─ which I’d wager will be after the Newhaven line opens, on June 21 or whenever ─ perhaps it too could be put on permanent display as a monument to how little can be achieved with limitless public funding.

The winding gear was unearthed at a site known as the Pilrig Muddle, where Edinburgh’s cable tram interchanged with Leith’s horse-drawn system, and with the whacky cycle lanes on Leith Walk weaving between road and pavement on either side of the new tram line, a bronze Lord Hardie triumphantly holding his report aloft, like Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments, would be a fitting addition. All it would need is the traffic cone.