Forth Replacement Crossing? No thanks!

Published on Friday 11 February 2011 17:51

THE names alone of many bridges around the world evoke a sense of scale and grandeur. The Golden Gate Bridge, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Forth Bridge, more than 120 years after it opened, are redolent of engineering brilliance.

However, when the second Forth road bridge is completed its title is unlikely to inspire the same sense of awe and wonder, as the Scottish Government has said it is content for the structure to be known as the rather more prosaic "Forth Replacement Crossing".

MSPs from both the Conservative and Labour Parties have attacked the name as "dull", accusing the SNP administration of lacking the imagination to conjure up a title fitting for the 2 billion structure.

The issue arose after Fife MSP John Park contacted transport minister Keith Brown, calling on him to open the naming process to a public consultation.

He received a response in which he was told plainly: "There are no plans to change project's name."

Mr Park yesterday said: "The name itself is an inaccurate description. It just sounds like civil service speak to me.

"This is going to be a hugely significant construction project and an major landmark when it's finished," he added.

"Once the construction starts, people are going to take an interest in it, and I thought that by throwing the naming process open to the public it would give them a sense of ownership of the project."

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The transport minister's decision also attracted criticism from the Scottish Conservative's transport spokesman Jackson Carlaw, who branded it "devoid of imagination".

He said: "With a price tag exceeding 2bn, this does seem rather dull.

"The public rightly might have expected something a bit more exciting for such an iconic structure. In naming the new bridge the Forth Replacement Crossing, we also have an inaccurate title - it isn't replacing anything as the current structure will remain.

"It is totally devoid of any imagination and rather neatly sums up an SNP government running out of steam."

Craig McGill, from online brand consultant Contently-managed.com, described the name as a "wasted opportunity".

"It's horrific," he said."It's worse than a poor choice - it's dull and uninspiring.

"You're fed up before you've even finished saying it.

"There are few big spend projects for people to rally behind, so this is really a wasted opportunity.

"Whichever government is in after the election, they could have had children sending in pictures with suggested names, we could have had famous Scots suggested, who knows what great little Scottish stories we could have found out about." He added: "It's engineering projects like this that Scotland used to be known for, so it saddens me to hear they have decided on this.

"It seems to diminish its potential."

Mr Park said that since first mooting the idea of a public naming process with his constituents, he had received a steady stream of suggestions.

He said that he had thought something that evoked the area's naval history would be suitable, but that the name "Kingdom Bridge" had emerged as a popular choice among those he had spoken to, although he admitted this had come mainly from people living in Fife.

However, he added that many of those he had heard from had expressed the belief that the Scottish Government would carry out a public consultation before settling on a name.

Mr Park said that he now planned to contact the transport minister again, asking him to rethink this title.

The project has held the name the Forth Replacement Crossing since 2006, after the study that was carried out to investigate the various crossing options available to replace the existing Forth Road Bridge.

Responding to the criticisms, a Transport Scotland spokesman said: "The Forth Replacement Crossing is absolutely vital to Scotland's sustainable economic growth and is on track to begin construction in 2011 and be delivered within budget in 2016.

"It is also Scotland's biggest infrastructure project for a generation and we recognise it will attract significant national and international interest.

"Our focus at present is on completing procurement and preparing for construction this year. We have no plans to change the project's name."