Stop playing chicken over new bridge, politicians told

Published on Monday 5 January 2009 21:05

POLITICIANS in Westminster and Holyrood were last night urged to "stop playing chicken" over one of Scotland's most important projects, for the good of the country.

Fears have been raised that the game of political brinkmanship between the SNP Scottish Government and the Labour UK government over funding the new Forth road bridge could put the project at risk.

The row erupted at the end of last week when Treasury minister Yvette Cooper sent a letter to Scottish finance secretary John Swinney, telling him he could not spread the 2 billion needed for the project over 20 years.

She said it was impossible to take that sort of decision on budgets so far ahead.

Yesterday, it emerged that the request to the Treasury to do this had only been sent less than two weeks before SNP transport minister Stewart Stevenson stood up to announce the funding package in the strategic transport review on 10 December.

Gavin Brown, the Conservatives' enterprise spokesman, said: "This really is like watching a bad game of chess.

"But actually the two administrations need to stop playing chicken over what really is the most important strategic project in Scotland's medium and long term future."

He added: "You have to ask why the SNP government did not contact the Treasury before and what they have been doing for 17 months."

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said attempts were being made to arrange a meeting with the Treasury minister but insisted that even without the requested arrangement, the new bridge would be paid for.

He would not comment on where that left other capital projects when all the budget had been taken up by the new bridge.

However, the spokesman said he believed the Treasury could still be persuaded to change its mind and that a precedent had been set with bringing forward spending on "Millennium Goals" for helping the Third World.

"We were disappointed with the contents, but not surprised with the tone of the letter from Yvette Cooper," he said.

The spokesman ruled out using public private partnership (PPP) system of funding because he claimed it would be more expensive and "pointless". But he was unable to say how much a PPP deal would cost compared to direct government funding.

Labour have accused the SNP of trying to cover up their own incompetence.

They claim that the dispute has been manufactured because the funding agency created by the Scottish Government – the Scottish Futures Trust – is not up to the task of building the bridge.

"Now, Alex Salmond and John Swinney are desperately trying to shift the blame and put SNP interests ahead of Scotland's," said Labour's finance spokesman Andy Kerr.

"The onus is on them as the Scottish Government to find a credible way to pay for the crossing. The SNP must stop playing grudge and grievance politics in their own narrow interest while Scotland suffers."

How scheme was scaled back to 2bn

THE new Forth road bridge is needed because the existing structure is suffering from wear and tear and may not be able to take heavy goods vehicles in about ten years.

It is hoped the new bridge will be completed by 2016, however under the plan announced by Stewart Stevenson, the transport minister, last month, it will no longer be a replacement bridge.

Instead, the new 2 billion bridge will take road traffic, while the old bridge will continue to take buses, trains, pedestrians and cyclists, and even, according to Mr Stevenson, trams.

The proposal is a scaled down version of the original scheme, which would have cost 4 billion and would have been more flexible in case the old bridge was completely unusable.

The SNP wants to pay for this direct from the Scottish Government's capital budget.

This is because the party opposes private finance initiatives, which it claims are expensive and have lost their point because governments will no longer be able to keep the loans off their balance sheets.