Letter: Save £1bn on cost of Forth crossing

SO THE Scottish Government is having difficulty in financing their proposed Forth Replacement Crossing (first reported by Scotland on Sunday on 5 April, 2009). The Scottish Building Federation recommends that the money should be borrowed (Debate, 6 March) and our children saddled with the repayments.

Quite sensibly Westminster will grant the Scottish Government enough money to build a second bridge across the Forth and tie it into the motorway system at both ends. Unfortunately for the Scottish taxpayer, despite the Scottish Government's attempts to cloud the issue, this is not what they are doing. A second bridge would be half the cost of the technically bold and therefore fiscally risky Super Bridge over the Rosyth and Grangemouth navigation channels desired by the political class. Whilst I am proud of Scotland's history of engineering breakthroughs, the current climate is not the time for costly experiments.

A simpler, cheaper, and more functional crossing could start at the Dunfermline spur off the M90, thread between Rosyth dockyard and the site of special scientific interest, avoiding both, ending at the M9, Junction 2. This would reduce costs by about 1 billion.

Ross Carruthers FICE, Perth