Brian Monteith: Spending not saving – what a way to run a railway

Published on Monday 8 March 2010 19:52

WE ARE in the deepest recession that all but the very, very old can remember.

We are being told by those in the know that forthcoming economic statistics will show any recovery has reversed into a second recession. As if that is not bad enough, reports from economists remind us with depressing regularity that the recession in Scotland will be longer and deeper.

The pain that has been felt by tens of thousands of Scots losing their jobs in the private sector is now arriving in the public sector, as local government faces up to the possibility of shedding as many as 35,000 employees. Every day councils warn of facilities being closed, services being curtailed and charges being introduced or increased.

Meanwhile, in the political world the debate in Westminster is not whether significant cuts in public expenditure are needed but when, with the Labour government not surprisingly wishing to postpone them beyond the general election. That there will be two budgets this year is also not beyond doubt – the cuts are coming, but not until we have been asked to vote who is offering to cut what.

Alex Salmond has never been slow to call for the protection of the block grant that feeds Scotland's public sector leviathan, hoping to pin the blame for reductions firmly on the parties of the Union. He knows that one day before the next Holyrood election the Scottish Parliament will have to face up to the stark economic reality that its own spending is unsustainable and the debts of the past must be paid for.

It is symptomatic of Holyrood's Walt Disney world that our MSPs still barter over where money should be spent, rather than saying where it might be saved. Even on Saturday, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott announced he would like to increase spending by 300 million.

The most notable example of this otherworldliness is the continued commitment to build the Borders Railway. Last week the first excavation works in Galashiels activated a clause in that railway's act of parliament that now commits this and future Scottish Governments to complete the project between Edinburgh and Tweedbank, two miles from Melrose.

While the Scottish Parliament may not wish to address reality, the sponsoring councils of Edinburgh, Midlothian and Scottish Borders most certainly will. In Midlothian the council knows it cannot now afford a railway it was once expected to contribute 20m towards and be ready to bear a share of the likely cost overruns.

The council recently announced 3.2m of cuts and its recreational flagship, the Hillend Ski Centre, now looks likely to close. Ten new PFI-financed schools have brought multi-million pound obligations for the next 30 years and, as with Edinburgh and its trams project, there is no visibility as to where any contribution to the railway will come from.

The Labour leader of Midlothian Council, Derek Milligan, has said: "Things are simply going to get worse. There can be nothing that's untouchable." And he is not alone. Liberal Democrat group leader Les Thacker said: "We are in a very, very serious situation."

The irony is that the section of the line that will run through Midlothian to Gorebridge with four new stations is the only part that can sport any economic justification. Taking the line further south just does not stack up and this is why nervous politicians who feared it would never depart past Gorebridge inserted the so-called "I've started so I'll finish" Mastermind clause. No-one can tie a future government or parliament to such a commitment; they can always amend legislation, but more likely would just choose to delay completion indefinitely.

Stewart Stevenson, the minister for illusionary transport projects, says the project will be unaffected by spending cuts because it is not government funding – but it is certainly not private sector funding because it will simply never make any money and the capital employed is risk capital, which cannot be justified in any scenario. Someone will have to pay and that is most likely to be the council-tax payer in the partnership councils.

That is fair, one might think; after all, the Borders folk will have the benefit of the railway. Wrong. The three Borders stations will serve about only 15 per cent of the population that would find a reason to use it. Galashiels numbers only 12,367 people, while Stow has 620 and Tweedbank and Melrose together have 3,387, leaving the remaining 89,978 to decide if it is worth their while using the line when going to and from Edinburgh. It is safe to say the vast majority won't.

Those living north of the stations, in Innerleithen, Peebles and Lauder, will, like me, continue to find driving to Edinburgh quicker – as in fact will those living south of the line, in Kelso, Jedburgh, Hawick, Selkirk, Coldstream or Duns.

Many people I meet are not even aware the railway will come nowhere near them – because its promoters glibly brand the project as the romantic Waverley line reborn, which it is not, or talk of it serving the Borders community, which it does not. Talk of integrated transport is meaningless when the Galashiels station, which is nothing more than an open bus shelter on concrete, has no car park.

Only when the council tax bills with their large increases are finally delivered will the populations south of Edinburgh realise they have been duped by their politicians' extravagance. Even the environmental case collapses on examination. The diesel-powered carriages manage a paltry two miles per gallon and will have to exceed targets to show a lower emission than equivalent car use.

The Halcrow report of 2005 estimated 2,125 passenger trips per day (of which only 355 would come from Galashiels and Tweedbank) of which less than half, 634, would shift from car to rail. Taking the cost of the line at 295m the capital cost per car saved is 465,000, and with a likely operational deficit of just under 7m per annum, the cost of each car displaced will be 10,000 every year. We would be better offering free bus passes for life.

All of this is being supported while the Scottish Government still claims it will construct a new crossing over the River Forth, costing billions.

Holyrood can't do it all. It has to be more honest and start trimming the give-aways and delaying indefinitely the pipe dreams. The Borders railway would be one place to start.

&#149 Brian Monteith is policy director of ThinkScotland.org.