1 January 2011
Setting Forth – to where by 2020?
New Year is traditionally a time when Scotland looks both to the past and the future – often ending with muddled thinking and broken resolutions! The 2010s look set to follow this pattern with sharp conflicts of view on the best ways forward and assertions replacing evidence.
On the one hand, the Scottish and UK governments, business groups and other interests appear in broad agreement that the future for the Scottish economy and national well-being lies in acceptance of the need for resilience and greater security in our approach to energy and cumulative cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Scotland has sought plaudits for one of the most ambitious targets for cuts in emissions (over 40% on 1990 levels by 2020) and the expansion of both renewables and viable carbon capture and storage. Yet actual progress has been slow with annual targets for emissions cuts being cut to less than 1% over the next three years with miraculous advances later in the 2010s. Outcomes for 2010 have still to be assessed but recession may have helped deliver cuts over 2% with the challenge being to have programmes ensuring that such cuts are maintained as the economy improves and restructures.
At the same time, the draft Scottish Budget includes an additional Forth Crossing completed by 2016 and financed by cuts of between £200m and £400m a year in other Scottish Government and local authority spending to 2016. All the main political parties have voted unanimously (apart from LibDem MSP Margaret Smith and the Greens) for such a crossing. Repeated assertions have been made failure to give top priority to an extra crossing would be a disaster for the Scottish economy and employment . This conflicts with an impressive range of evidence rarely, if ever, mentioned in debate.
The technical evidence is that the existing Queensferry crossings can handle existing levels of passenger usage for the foreseeable future – and indeed more passengers if rail and bus usage and car-sharing is increased. Cable replacement, or additional cables, may be required at some point but at a capital cost less than one-tenth of a £2bn plus additional crossing. For the past decade, actual rail and bus use has been rising faster than much reduced growth in car use. There is a problem with the increased deck wear and tear arising from the 5% of traffic in HGVs but some of this is not fully loaded while the heaviest HGVs could be diverted to alternative routes, The cost of such diversions would be much lower than the benefits of diverting £200m to £400m a year for the next five years to other purposes.
This is the key economic issue which has not been evaluated . There is a high probability of more positive impacts both for immediate employment and for creating a more energy-efficient and low carbon economy through changes in the budgets for 2011 to 2016 to remove priority for an additional Forth crossing. It has been argued that this dilemma could be resolved by accelerating the introduction of borrowing powers for the Scottish Government or finding extra sources of income to underpin proposals for borrowing by new non-profit distributing bodies. Yet it is not clear that an additional Forth Crossing could command high priority for borrowing.
Borrowing and fiscal policies need to focus on the energy reform and emission reduction agenda – with better results coming from a range of policies and actions offering both early and longer-term benefits. Big infrastructure projects need to be well-aligned with the agenda for energy change and emission reduction. The Forth Crossing fails to meet this test – tending as it would to increase car-based traffic (often in lone occupant cars at peaks) and strengthening arguments to open up the existing road bridge to all traffic rather than confine it to a few buses, cyclists and pedestrians.
A final point missing from the political debate has been the lack of appreciation of the changing trends in movement apparent since the mid 1990s. The evidence from both the National Travel Survey and traffic counts has made it clear that annual passenger movement per head by car in Britain has changed from growth to stability and slight decline. This is a structural change in travel preferences, intensified in part by the recent recession. In contrast, rail passenger usage is now at its highest ever level with Network Rail expecting further growth in Scotland of at least 40% by 2025 and even higher growth of Anglo-Scottish travel as the momentum of high-speed rail develops. Bus traffic around cities such as Edinburgh has also shown higher growth and helped justify a transition to tram development on routes such as the corridor to the West Edinburgh Business Gateway, the Gogar Interchange and the Airport.
So what is the New Year message? We need to bring more evidence and a consciousness of changing trends into the political debate – not least at a time when public spending is being restricted. The politicians’ New Year resolutions should be break their former resolutions to support a Forth Crossing by 2016 and set forth changed priorities bringing larger, earlier and longer-term benefits for the economy, employment, health and well-being to, and beyond, 2020.
Tom Hart is a former lecturer in Economic and Social History at Glasgow University, a founder member of the Scottish Transport Studies Group and the principal contributor of 20th century chapters in the recently published history of Transport and Communications (in Scotland), Vol. 8 in the Compendium of Scottish Ethnology, editor Kenneth Veitch, John Donald, 2009