8 February 2012
Government u-turn on sustainable transport funds welcome
Scottish Budget:
Government u-turn on sustainable transport funds welcome -- but SNP manifesto failure remains
Transform Scotland [1], the sustainable transport alliance, has today (Wednesday 8 Feb) welcomed the Scottish Government's decision to reverse some of its cuts to sustainable transport budgets -- but highlighted that the SNP continue to renege on their manifesto promise to increase the proportion of transport spending going into sustainable transport.
Transform Scotland Director Colin Howden said:
"It's welcome that John Swinney has seen sense and reversed some of the proposed cuts to the sustainable transport budget. [2] However, we expect the 2012/13 budget to remain significantly down on that in the current financial year.
"In spite of his welcome u-turn on the sustainable transport budget, Swinney's announcement of an additional £72m for new road-building means that the SNP have reneged on their manifesto promise to increase the proportion of all transport spending to go into sustainable transport." [3]
ENDS
Notes to Editors
[1] Transform Scotland is the national sustainable transport alliance, bringing together rail, bus and shipping operators, local authorities, national environment and conservation groups, businesses and local transport groups - see <http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/members.aspx> for details.
[2] John Swinney announced in his speech £13m extra over three years for the 'Sustainable and Active Travel' budget; we expect this, in 2012/13, to take the SAT budget back towards, but still significantly below, that in 2011/12.
[3] The SNP reneged on their manifesto promise (May 2011) to increase investment in sustainable transport in the Draft Budget published in September 2011.
In their manifesto for the 2011 elections, the SNP said "[we] will continue to increase the proportion of transport spending that goes on low-carbon, active and sustainable travel."
But in September 2011, only four months later, their Draft Budget 2012-13 announced cuts for sustainable travel, with a particularly severe cut for the active travel (calculated by Spokes to be around 33%). But the roads budget went up by 15%.
[4] It was purely the Scottish Government’s decision to cut investment in active travel — not the UK Government’s.
The Scottish Ministers’ standard response is that it's the UK Government's fault in imposing budget cuts on Scotland. This is just rubbish. The overall Scottish transport budget is scheduled to go *UP* between 2011-12 and 2012-13 (from £1803.7m to £1838.2m). Cuts to active travel are directly the result of Scottish Government decisions: It is simply misleading for the Scottish Ministers to claim that it is the fault of the UK Government.
END OF NEWS RELEASE