21 October 2010
ForthRight Alliance: New Forth Bridge will starve rest of Scotland of investment
New road bridge will mean capital spending on education, health and local government will suffer disproportionate cuts
The ForthRight Alliance, a coalition of groups opposed to the building of a Second Forth Road Bridge, has today (Thursday 21st) criticised the Scottish Government decision to continue with an unaffordable, unsustainable and unpopular new road bridge despite the massive spending cuts that the rest of Scottish society will be forced to bear. The ForthRight Alliance is calling for the existing Forth Road Bridge to be fixed so that capital spending on education, health and local government does not suffer disproportionate cuts.
With a median cost estimate of £2.044 billion, the expenditure profile published by the Scottish Parliament shows that some £1.369 billion will be spent on the Second Forth Road Bridge between 2011/12 and 2014/15. Yesterday's Comprehensive Spending Review revealed a reduction in the annual available Scottish capital budget from the current £3.4 billion to £2.3 billion in 2014/15.
Lawrence Marshall, chair of the ForthRight Alliance and former convener of the Forth Estuary Transport Authority (between 2005 and 2007), said:
"It is now undeniable that building an additional Forth road bridge will impact massively on capital spending on areas such as health, education and local government throughout all of Scotland for much of the rest of this decade - and all this to render almost empty an existing crossing which is not beyond saving.
"It is time for MSPs to acknowledge this - and to postpone a final decision on a new bridge until the results of cable drying on the existing bridge are better known in the next year or so."
By the end of the next Parliament, capital expenditure on this unnecessary project will amount to more than three times that on education throughout Scotland and almost three-quarters that spent on either health or local government. Of course, these figures are based on the assumption that the construction of the new bridge remains on budget. Should the cost of the new crossing increase significantly, it will obviously represent an even greater threat to capital spending in those other vitally important areas.
The economic, social and environmental impacts of the Second Forth Road Bridge are massive. Given that the Forth Estuary Transport Authority is confident that the current programme of cable drying will succeed in arresting the corrosion found on the existing bridge, the ForthRight Alliance calls upon everyone concerned with the improvement of facilities in all spheres of public life in Scotland to ask that their MSPs – many of whom privately doubt the need to build this new bridge – seriously consider, as the Forth Crossing Bill goes through the Scottish Parliament in the coming months, postponing a final decision on the construction of an additional bridge until the results of the cable drying are better known in the next year or so.
Lawrence Marshall added:
"The new bridge is not only unaffordable, it is also unpopular. Indeed, a public opinion poll in November last year found 57% of Scots in favour of fixing the existing bridge. Only 34% supported the Scottish Government's view that an additional bridge is required." [2]
ENDS
NOTE TO EDITORS:
[1] The ForthRight Alliance is a coalition of groups opposed to the construction of a Second Forth Road Bridge. The Alliance believes that a new road bridge is both unwelcome and unnecessary, as a series of reports have indicated that the problems with the Forth Road Bridge can be addressed without building a second bridge. See <http://www.forthrightalliance.org/> for further details.
[2] A YouGov poll in November 2009 found that 57% were in favour of fixing the existing Forth Road Bridge. See <http://www.patrickharviemsp.com/2009/11/news-release-yougov-poll-shows-57-oppose-extra-forth-road-bridge/> for details.
[3] Evidence from official reports suggests that even if drying — which has been successfully installed on sixteen similar suspension bridges worldwide — fails to arrest corrosion then cable augmentation or replacement can be carried out over 7-8 years without weekday closure of the bridge. The cost range for this is £91-122 million [Reference: Forth Estuary Transport Authority (2008): Feasibility Study for the Replacement or Augmentation of the Main Cables – Update and Interim Stage 2 Report. Report to FETA, 22/02/08: Table 1, Section 3.3], compared with an initial estimate of £3,200 - 4,200 million for a new bridge and now £1,720 - 2,340 million for a bridge of "narrower design".
END OF NEWS RELEASE