North Bridge roadworks delays - your views online

North Bridge won’t reopen until 2025 and the total cost has also risen to more than £62million - more than three times the amount originally budgeted

Gordon Allan

Who is accountable for this utter shambles? Surely structural engineers would have conducted a thorough survey prior to the maintenance works. Another Edinburgh disgrace!

Scott Smith

It took two years to build this bridge but it’s going to take six years to fix it. It’s like the guys doing the trams in Leith Walk, they are never working and always standing about. After speaking to people who are working on the trams they are on top dollar, so they aren’t in any rush to get moving.

Martin Delaney

What the heck Edinburgh? Will our city ever stop looking like a big building site? Yes, construction work involves disruption and upheaval, but how it can take this long to fix such a small bridge is beyond me.

Stephen Ball

What the heck have they spent £62m on exactly? It still looks the same as it did before.

Mo Sakeb

Constant roadworks. Constant construction works. Horrible road conditions. Ridiculously expensive. Takes an absolute age to get from one side of Edinburgh to the other. Total joke.

Richard Leslie

Would’ve been done and opened in a month in Japan. How it goes from £20m to £62 beggars belief.

Ryan MacDonald

Old structures are a nightmare for running up costs. That said though, the council and governments in general need to get better at writing contracts with penalty clauses. Companies should be factoring in the potential for issues due to the nature of the work. Granted you can’t have everything covered, but three times the value of original contract isnt realistic and wouldnt wash with private money.

David Funnell

Might have been cheaper to knock it down and build a new one, probably quicker too.

Derek Scott

Only in Edinburgh can a job that is supposed to take nine months take over four years, bringing the city to a standstill.

Ryan Wallace

Surprise surprise, same thing happened with the trams no one wanted.

Vic Stewart

There is a surprise, will probably be a toll to cross it.

Ralph MacGillivray

Apparently they discovered a railway station beneath it.

Plesea Florin Danut

That will be fine because it will open about 10 years earlier than the trams, so what's the rush?

Jill Ogilvie

We never know what bus is going where these days - diverted traffic tailbacks down the Mound, Chambers Street and don't get me started on the shambles of tram works causing major gridlocked traffic affecting the whole of Leith. It took me two hours to get home from York Place to Leith one day as York Place traffic queues were at a complete standstill. Its gonna take tourists three months to tour the city as is. I also notice that half the trams in Princes Street have hardly any passengers on them, so what's the point. We salute Lothians Finest Buses and all their drivers – they must have the patience of a Saint throughout all this. Rant over.

Steven Ritchie

The Dutch or the Germans could have removed that bridge bit by bit and rebuilt it exactly as it was in weeks. Edinburgh air pollution readings are increasing with all the detours and queuing traffic.

Medical misery

Patient satisfaction with GP surgeries has slumped considerably across Scotland, results of an official Scottish Government health and care survey show.

Helen Kay

Terrible. You can’t get appointments when you need to see a doctor. It’s always ‘I will put you to quick service’ but it’s not them you want to see, it’s your doctor.

Steven Oliver

I have an underactive thyroid and need my blood checked once a year. My last check was three years ago. Before lockdown you could ring up for an appointment, have one made for that same day, and anything else would get arranged within days. Now, it's just a waiting game. Where I live, you can't even wait inside now.

Julz Carpenter

One of the practices in my area has something like four doctors and about 50k patients. It’s not that you can’t get get an appt, it’s that they have way too many patients on their lists. Then there’s the receptionists to get past!

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