29 January 2014
NPF3 transport priorities "arbitrary"
Transform Scotland's chair Phil Matthews is today presenting evidence to Scottish Parliament transport committee on National Planning Framework 3 (NPF3).
In Transform Scotland's evidence paper, we set out our support for National Developments on the Central Scotland Green Network and the new ‘National Long Distance Cycling and Walking Network’.
In our evidence, we call for the inclusion as National Developments in NPF3 the following two projects:
- Inter-City Express rail network
- Strategic rail freight connectivity
Overall, Transform Scotland is critical of the choice of which transport projects are, and aren't, included in NPF3, judging the choice to be "quite arbitrary". In our evidence paper, we state:
"There appears to us to be no consistency as to which projects feature in NPF3 and which — such as most of the country’s principal road and rail projects — are excluded from detailed consideration under the NPF3 process. "We consider that this makes the NPF3 process a limited, partial, and, ultimately, unsatisfactory process."