A date has been set for the first preliminary hearing of the public inquiry into the Edinburgh Trams project.
It was announced that Lord Hardie will chair the hearing in the capital on August 19 as a call was made for people and organisations who wish to be designated as core participants during the inquiry to come forward.
Core participants will be people and groups who played a significant role in the trams project, have an interest in aspects of the inquiry or who may be subject to criticism during the inquiry.
It was announced last year that the public inquiry had been awarded statutory powers to allow the senior judge to compel witnesses to participate.
The Scottish Government took action after some of those involved in the project refused ''point-blank'' to co-operate, Lord Hardie said.
The core participants will be able to appoint legal representative and may attend for all or large parts of the proceedings.
Lord Hardie said: "At a brief, formal preliminary hearing on August 19, I will announce the details of those persons and organisations who have been designated as core participants.
"These individuals and organisations will have a key role during the inquiry and participate actively in the proceedings by making statements or asking questions, under my guidance.
"The main purpose of the preliminary hearing is to ensure that all procedural matters are agreed before the start of the inquiry hearings, the dates for which I will announce at an appropriate future juncture and in line with the published order of events."
The trams began operating at the end of May last year after six years of disruption and a long-running dispute between Edinburgh City Council and contractors.
The eventual cost of £776 million was more than double the sum earmarked for the project by the previous Labour-led administration.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article