16 June 2010
Green Bus Fund for Scotland welcomed
Transform Scotland board member Calum McCallum commented:
“Transform Scotland welcomes the Government’s commitment to £4.3 million for the purchase of vehicles with lower carbon emissions, for local authorities, and the additional £3.4 million for the ‘Scottish Green Bus Fund’. Focusing on public sector needs is a sensible way of kick-starting the market for LCVs in areas where we will always have a need for transport, such as emergency services, maintaining our built environment or refuse collection. Dedicating funds to bus operators will help make public transport better still in terms of carbon emissions. We feel this is a far better use of scarce funds than the expense and experimentalism of providing infrastructure for mass uptake of electric private cars that has been discussed recently.
“This funding is, though, pennies by comparison to what the Government seems determined to spend on over-blown and un-necessary road-building. The amount spent on the Aberdeen Western By-pass alone would pay for multiple schemes of this kind, costing the equivalent of roughly 4,000 low carbon buses, never mind the cost of other road building projects, especially the Second Forth Road Bridge. The Government has not learned the lesson that more roads means more traffic - and more traffic means more carbon emissions. It continues to sacrifice the future of our public services and our environment at the altar of the perceived needs of the private motorist.”