The train due to arrive at Platform 1 will be on budget

Published on Thursday 15 May 2008 22:07

SCOTLAND'S ambitious railway-building programme will not suffer the same major overspend as the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine line, the transport minister vowed yesterday, as he officially opened the route.

Stewart Stevenson said tighter cost controls and governance had been introduced for the remaining 1.5 billion of projects in the wake of the debacle.

The first passenger trains for 40 years will run between Stirling and Alloa from Monday on a route that cost 85 million – more than double the original 37 million estimate.

However, the scheme's backers said even greater benefits would come from using the line to divert slow coal trains bound for Longannet power station, in Fife, off busy commuter routes across the Central Belt. This will enable trains from Edinburgh to Perth and Aberdeen to double in frequency from December.

When the route was approved by MSPs in 2004 as the first new railway under devolution, Nicol Stephen, the then transport minister, said it was expected to open at the end of the following year.

However, a series of apparently unforeseen problems and a complicated management structure led to increased costs and caused big delays.

The stabilisation of old mine workings cost some four times original expectations, the design of a level crossing was changed at a late stage, and there were difficulties with integrating the line with existing signalling. Compensation for landowners was higher than an-ticipated, while a new one-mile road to enable the closure of a level crossing added to costs.

Mr Stevenson said lessons had been learned by switching control of the scheme to the Scottish Government's Transport Scotland agency. He went on: "I am utterly determined we will manage the cost of other projects and not see the cost escalation of this line."

He said strict cost controls and governance would apply to the Glasgow Airport rail link, and the Borders and Airdrie-Bathgate lines. In addition, a new Holyrood approval process for future projects would focus much more clearly who was responsible for them.

Janet Cadenhead, the leader of Clackmannanshire Council, which originally launched the scheme, said: "The railway will breathe new life into Alloa and Clackmannanshire, encouraging businesses and jobs, while providing our citizens with convenient, safe and fast public transport to Stirling, Glasgow and Edinburgh."