Salmond goes for cut-price bridge across Forth

This cut-price bridge will cost about 2 billion – half what had been planned – and accommodate cars, vans and lorries, with buses allowed to keep using the existing bridge.

Stewart Stevenson, the transport minister, also revealed that the new bridge would be paid for using Scottish Government resources, not the controversial Scottish Futures Trust funding scheme.

Scottish ministers have asked the Treasury to accelerate their transport funding to allow this to happen, but if they do not get what they want from London they have admitted the cost of the new bridge could put other transport plans in jeopardy.

The decision to retain the existing road bridge as a public-transport crossing and scale down plans for a new structure took opposition MSPs and transport experts by surprise when it was announced yesterday.

The new bridge will have only two lanes in each direction with a hard shoulder, rather than three. The approach roads will be dual carriageways instead of motorways. This, ministers say, will cut the cost from an expected 4 billion to between 1.7 billion and 2.3 billion.

But it is also likely to mean an explosion in public transport, as bus operators realise they will have the old bridge all to themselves – at least until ministers get round to adding trams or a light rail system, which is likely to take many years to sort out.

By cutting back on the size and scale of the new crossing, ministers are also likely to face the prospect of the new bridge operating at full capacity as soon as it opens in 2016.

Sources close to Alex Salmond, the First Minister, admitted last night that the new preferred option was something of a "credit crunch" decision.

An insider said: "Finances are tight now. It does reflect that. But it also reflects the new information that the old bridge is not deteriorating as fast as we had feared."

Ministers now believe that, by taking most heavy traffic off the existing bridge, they can extend its lifespan to the full 120 years that it was meant to last when it was built in the early 1960s.

They also claimed yesterday that they could guarantee the new bridge would be in place by 2016 and come in on budget, because it was being paid for using Scottish Government funds.

Mr Stevenson said: "This is a project of unprecedented recent scale and will be a massive part of our infrastructure programme.

"Our strategy is economically sound and a value-for-money solution."

Opposition politicians warned that the Scottish Government was taking a big gamble.

A Labour spokesman said: "This is like Alex Salmond going down to the bookies and putting 2 billion on one horse. This is based on an assessment of the old bridge, which we haven't had yet."

The new Forth crossing was one of 29 transport proposals outlined yesterday to take Scotland into the next two decades.

These included the dualling of the A9 from Perth to Inverness, major improvements to the Glasgow-Edinburgh rail line, a new railway station in the west of Edinburgh to connect passengers with trams and the airport, and upgrading of the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverness.

There had been speculation that the new Forth crossing would be built using the SNP government's flagship Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) funding mechanism. At the heart of the SFT is a not-for-profit model of funding public-sector building projects, spreading the payments over many years.

John Swinney, the finance secretary, admitted yesterday that the current state of the markets made this approach virtually inconceivable.

He said it would be impossible to know how much the Scottish Government would have to pay in the long run for such a large amount of money.

Instead, he decided to use Scottish Government funds, but he has written to the Chancellor asking him to bring forward transport funds from 2017, 2018 and 2019, allowing ministers to cover the major payments on the bridge, expected in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

He stressed, however, that the Scottish Government had the money to pay for the bridge if the Treasury refused to help.

The Scottish Government has about 3.5 billion for road projects every year and this could be used to finance the new bridge, but it would inevitably delay or halt other major projects for a couple of years.

"If we are unable to secure the Treasury's agreement, then we will simply have to make choices about our capital programme," Mr Swinney said. "Our highest-priority capital investment project must be the maintenance of a Forth crossing."

Despite the likely increase in public transport across the Forth, Green campaigners attacked the Scottish Government for increasing capacity.

The best option, they claimed, would have been simply to repair the existing structure.

The Green MSP Patrick Harvie said the government should be tackling carbon emissions.

He said the Forth crossing plan would have been out of date in the 1960s, and added: "Campaigners across Scotland have called on the government to put the brakes on runaway climate change, but instead ministers have just stepped on the gas."

Friends of the Earth Scotland said: "The government is still refusing to recognise that the economically and environmentally sensible approach to the Forth crossing is to repair the existing bridge, rather than investing in additional capacity."

The Labour MSP Des McNulty dismissed the entire SNP transport strategy, claiming that many projects were destined never to be delivered.

He called on the finance secretary to admit the "failure" of the Scottish Futures Trust. "In that context, this document is a cruel con," he said.

Alex Johnstone, MSP, the Scottish Conservatives' transport spokesman, said of the strategy: "It falls short of delivering true budgets and, above all, it fails to deliver an adequate timescale."

Alison McInnes, for the Liberal Democrats, said costs had been inflated in the first place.

The Road Haulage Association backed the bridge plans and road improvements, but added: "Further detail is required about when these projects will be taken forward before we can acclaim the review as a great help for the freight industry."

The new bridge will be promoted by a parliamentary bill to be brought forward next year.

Existing crossing may last for decades despite corrosion concerns

INVESTIGATIONS in 2004 found corrosion in the main cables of the Forth Road Bridge.

Experts warned that a new crossing would be necessary to take the load off the existing structure and that heavy goods vehicles might have to be barred from the bridge from 2014.

Since then, further work has been done on the cables. The results, published earlier this year, showed that the cables were still deteriorating, but not as fast as was feared four years ago.

Revised estimates were put in place, predicting traffic restrictions might not have to be introduced until 2017 or so. At the same time, dehumidifiers were installed in the cables to dry them out, in the hope of stabilising the corrosion and stopping the deterioration.

However, the results of that remedial work will not be known until 2011 or 2012, and only then will the true lifespan of the existing bridge's cables be known.

If the dehumidifiers have worked, the cables might be able to take the strain of the bridge for a further 100 years, particularly if most traffic is diverted on to another bridge.

But there is another option: the cables could be replaced. It would have been extremely difficult had the existing bridge been the only available crossing over that part of the Forth, because it would have to be shut completely for a time so that the cables could be replaced.

However, if and when the new bridge is built, the cables in the existing structure could be replaced without too much disruption – although it would be an expensive job.

Either way, it is now likely the existing Forth Road Bridge will survive and be in operation for the 120 years it was originally designed for – albeit with the help of a neighbouring bridge and possibly other remedial work.

Impressive wish list of projects to boost length and breadth of Scotland

INTER-CITY LINKS

AWARE that Edinburgh to Glasgow travel is the main area of concern for business leaders, ministers devoted considerable effort to the Edinburgh-Glasgow rail journey.

The plan, unveiled yesterday, will result in rail journey times between Edinburgh and Glasgow being reduced to 35 minutes (from the current 45 to 50 minutes).

Ministers said there would be 13 services an hour between the two cities.

However, not all of these will run between Edinburgh Waverley and Glasgow Queen Street.

A total of six trains per hour will run between Waverley and Queen Street, and three per hour between Waverley and Glasgow Central.

There will be others, but they will run to Edinburgh from the Airdrie-Bathgate line and via Shotts.

There have been calls for ministers to introduce a so-called "bullet train" between Scotland's main cities, just operating between the two centres and stopping nowhere in between.

However, officials confirmed yesterday that none of the services would be non-stop – the quickest would still stop at Falkirk High – but there will be fewer stops on the fastest services than at present.

There was, though, nothing about upgrading the M8.

A9 DUALLING

THE Scottish Government has, for the first time, made a definite commitment to dual the A9 from Perth to Inverness.

At the moment, only small sections are dualled, causing frustration and tailbacks.

However, ministers have not set a timetable on the road improvement, stating only that it will done over 20 years. The reason for this reticence is that the proposal is hugely expensive – probably 4 billion or more.

Ministers wanted to make their commitment known but did not want to get tied down on timetables, aware that it will be difficult to find the money to make good their pledge, at least within the next ten to 15 years.

The A9 does run through SNP constituencies and this has led to accusations that the Scottish Government is simply looking after its own supporters.

The transport expert Professor Jon Shaw said: "There are clearly some safety issues on the A9 but they could be dealt with in less grandiose and expensive ways than dualling it all the way from Perth to Inverness."

He added: "The SNP has made very public justification for these dualling measures on safety grounds but when the A77 (in the south-west] needed to be improved, it got average speed cameras, it was not dualled."

ABERDEEN

ABERDEEN was a major beneficiary in the transport strategy unveiled yesterday.

Ministers announced that "key components" of the Aberdeen Crossrail project would be completed.

It is still unclear exactly what these "key components" will be and how much of the crossrail project will be adopted.

Also, as with other projects, there is not a definite timetable for this scheme, so supporters will be left wondering when they will get their transport measures in the North-east and, indeed, how much they will get. Ministers also said there will be improvements made to the Aberdeen to Inverness rail line to speed up journey times and a "package of improvements" to the A90 between Aberdeen and other communities in the North-east.

There are also plans to dual the A96 between Inverness and Nairn and to make other improvements – overtaking lanes, crawler lanes and other similar schemes – on the rest of the A96 to Aberdeen.

This drew criticism from Professor Jon Shaw, a transport expert, who said it appeared to be a waste to spend money on road and rail in the same transport corridor.

"Hundreds of millions of pounds will be spent doing similar things to both road and rail in the same area," he said.

DUNDEE BYPASS

ANOTHER new measure announced yesterday was a Dundee bypass.

Ministers did not actually say it would go ahead, but it is an option. They will either build a new northern peripheral bypass around Dundee from the A90 west of Invergowrie to the A90 north of Dundee, or upgrade the existing A90 Kingsway with improved roundabouts and junctions.

The bypass option would remove 50 per cent of traffic from Kingsway, and both options could incorporate bus priority lanes, cycle lanes and pedestrian measures.

GLASGOW

GLASGOW and the west of Scotland have been beneficiaries of largesse under the previous Labour-led Executive, so there might have been a fear that the area would lose out under the SNP administration.

Ministers sought to dispel that impression by announcing a series of measures for Scotland's biggest city, based around a crossrail project.

However, they were careful to be vague about the detail.

Ministers have been aware for some time that there are major issues with capacity at Glasgow's two city railway stations, Central and Queen Street.

They have now come up with plans to construct new stations on these two sites, linking rail networks to the north, south and east of the city and developing some sort of "Light Rapid Transit" system across Glasgow.

The form this will take has not yet been decided, but it could be anything from guided busways to trams or light trains, with access to the new Southern General Hospital a key priority.

TRAMS

ONE major long-term project announced yesterday was a plan to integrate transport across the Central Belt and Fife with Edinburgh's trams.

A new station will be built at Gogar to integrate with the tram network and provide onward connection for passengers using Edinburgh Airport. A new curve of track will be built at Dalmeny to enable access to the new station.

Stewart Stevenson, the transport minister, also suggested that trams might in time run all the way to Fife over the old Forth Road Bridge, although that has yet to be confirmed.

STRANRAER

MINISTERS have been keen for some time to improve links between Stranraer and the rest of Scotland.

This is something the Northern Irish Executive has been pushing for, but Scottish ministers are also aware of the importance of improving the often difficult roads to the main Scottish port with Ireland, both for the economy and for tourism. The Scottish Government is already committed to widening three sections of the A75. On top of this, ministers now want to introduce new overtaking lay-bys, climbing lanes, overtaking lanes and junction improvements in and around Dumfries. There are also plans to bring in driver information systems on the A75 and dual stretches of the A77 around Ayr and Dalry.

Ministers admitted yesterday that road and rail links to the Loch Ryan area "all experience difficulties in terms of capacity and speed and require improvements".

But there are safety reasons too. The Scottish Government stated: "These measures would be expected to significantly reduce accidents and improve journey times and reliability for drivers and freight."

The estimated cost of these improvements has been put at between 10 million and 50 million.

OTHER TRANSPORT MEASURES

Changing speed limits on motorways: Reducing the speed limit on motorways at times of congestion to 50mph or 40mph would aim to ease congestion. Speeds would be monitored by average-speed cameras.

The M74 extension has been constructed with gantries over the road to carry the variable speed signs and the speed cameras.

This scheme has already worked well in cutting congestion on the M25.

Faster, more frequent rail services linking Fife, Aberdeen, Inverness, Edinburgh, Perth and Glasgow – reducing journey times between Inverness and the Central Belt by up to 30 minutes (from the current four hours) and by up to 20 minutes between Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

There are proposals for new park-and-ride facilities serving Aberdeen (Dyce), Dundee (Charleston), Edinburgh (Pitreavie and Halbeath) and Glasgow (Bargeddie, Fullarton and Bannockburn).

There are also plans for significant upgrades to the A82 in the west. This will include road-widening at selected locations between Tarbert and Inveranan and between Corran Ferry and Fort William, as well as climbing lanes, overtaking lay-bys, road alignments, junction improvements and hard strips on these roads.

Passengers will be able to travel across public transport using a single ticket.

Freight links to improve between main points in Scotland and England.

Upgrade of the Haymarket interchange in Edinburgh, including a new concourse on platform level.

Analysis

Scottish Futures Trust in the balance

JOHN Swinney's decision to pay for the new Forth crossing using the Scottish block grant has raised serious questions over the future of the Scottish Government's flagship public finance model, the Scottish Futures Trust.

The Scottish Futures Trust was designed to replace the Public Private Partnership scheme for building schools, hospitals and major infrastructure projects.

The PPP scheme was viewed by SNP ministers as poor value for money because it gave too much profit to private companies and saddled governments with debt for many years.

The Scottish Futures Trust model was supposed to cut through those problems by backing so-called Not for Profit Distribution (NPD) schemes.

These were not actually "not for profit", but rather "not for quite so much profit" and the Scottish Futures Trust itself was supposed to act as the hub to get better deals for public bodies by negotiating centrally on their behalf.

Mr Swinney admitted yesterday that there were problems using the NPD model for the new bridge. He said it was impossible to know at this stage what the finance package would cost, given the turmoil in the financial markets at the moment and the difficulties with inter-bank lending and sources of private capital.

So he decided to finance it out of normal government funds.

His critics claimed yesterday that the SFT was now "dead" but Mr Swinney insisted that other transport projects would be in line to use the Scottish Futures Trust over the next few years.

He may be right and the SFT is not yet dead. However, it does seem badly wounded. This was a big opportunity to prove that the SFT was a viable alternative to PPP. The opportunity was not taken, leaving even bigger doubts over SFT in its wake.