Ministers set to abandon £650m airport rail link plan

Published on Tuesday 25 September 2007 12:10

THE SNP Government is set to ditch plans for a direct rail link to Edinburgh Airport and tell travellers to take the tram instead.

Plans due to be unveiled later this week are expected to include a new station at Gogar, where passengers could switch from train to tram to get to the airport.

The ambitious 650m Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (EARL), which involved diverting both the Edinburgh-Glasgow and Edinburgh-Fife lines and building a tunnel under the runway, will be scrapped.

The SNP fought the Holyrood elections earlier this year on a pledge to ditch both EARL and the trams, but it said it did want an alternative way of providing a rail link to the airport.

The Government was forced to accept defeat on the trams and allow the project to proceed. But MSPs agreed the EARL scheme needed to be reviewed.

And it is understood the Scottish Government's transport agency Transport Scotland has recommended to ministers that trains from the west and north should stop at a new station on the Edinburgh-Fife line near the Gogar roundabout. Trains from Glasgow and Dunblane could also be diverted via the station by using a link between Winchburgh and Dalmeny.

Passengers for the airport could get off and join the already approved tram line to the airport terminal. They would also have the opportunity to join the tram line - which begins at Newhaven - at Edinburgh Park.

The details of the scheme are expected to be confirmed when Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson makes a statement to the Scottish Parliament on Thursday.

However, despite the SNP's latest plans, opposition MSPs said the rail link plan was not necessarily dead. Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat who was transport minister before May's elections, reportedly said scrapping the rail link scheme would be a "huge error".

"Scotland's economy would benefit best from the project," he added. "Any other kind of proposal being dreamed up is more about getting the SNP out of a spending hole than in the strategic interests of Scotland."

His views are likely to be supported by Labour transport spokesman Charlie Gordon, who reportedly will be "questioning the minister closely on Thursday".

Labour group leader Cllr Ewan Aitken, who led the city council prior to May's elections, said both a rail and tram link were needed.

He said: "What we have to remember is this is not just Edinburgh's rail link to the airport, it's a rail link for the whole of Scotland. I've always believed that the trams would provide an excellent route to the airport but the rail link is between the airport and the rest of the country."