SNP plans for Forth bridge 'savings' come under fire

Published on Friday 8 April 2011 12:11

Plans by the SNP to use "savings" from the new Forth road bridge to set up a £250 million Scottish Futures Fund have been dismissed as "simply unbelievable".

• An artist's impression of the second Forth crossing.

The new fund – described by Alex Salmond as a "jobs-boosting and society-improving initiative" – would hand 50m each to five key projects.

The SNP said it was able to find the money because the Scottish Government had budgeted to spend 1.87 billion on the new Forth crossing between now and 2016, but the cost of the bridge had been reduced to 1.54bn.

Scottish Green leader Patrick Harvie said: "The public won't believe any politician who tries to manufacture a giveaway election without saying where the money will come from.

"The SNP want to squander 1.6bn on a bridge we don't need without even trying to fix the one we have, and somehow this frees up hundreds of millions of pounds.

"The price-tag may have been massaged down, but that doesn't magically make money pop into existence from nowhere."

Mr Harvie had previously branded Liberal Democrat plans to find cash by selling the debts of Scottish Water as "fantasy island economics".

He said the SNP's latest move was "even more absurd than the Lib Dems and their magic money pot".

The Lib Dems joined in the criticism, with election campaign chairman George Lyon claiming the original estimates of the cost of the bridge had been exaggerated.

He said: "Voters won't be fooled into thinking that the SNP have done the electorate a massive favour. This is a maths mix up. They should have got their sums right in the first place."

Setting out the plans, Mr Salmond said: "The new Forth crossing is our bridge to better times. Thanks to skilful negotiation and procurement, and the work of the Scottish Futures Trust, the SNP government achieved substantial savings on the cost of the crossing. We intend to invest these

savings in a 250m Scottish Futures Fund.

"The fund is an initiative that will put all of Scotland – young and old, urban and rural – in the best possible position to benefit from the 21st century economy, so that we achieve our full potential as a nation and as a society."

One of the 50m projects, the Sure Start Fund, would focus on helping under-fives in deprived communities.

Visiting Monkey Bizness at Edinburgh's Fountain Park, Mr Salmond said: "If our bridge to the future means anything, it means giving our youngest children the best start in life, and helping those in the most difficult of circumstances.

"Young children who are nurtured and stimulated in the early years will benefit throughout their lives."