Transform Scotland - For Sustainable Transport

Following the elections in May, Keith Brown has been reappointed as Minister for Transport and Housing. Brown is now answerable to Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment. It remains to be seen what approach the government will take, but, on face value at least, it appears that the Ministerial link between transport and climate change has been severed. Of course, if the focus were to be only on infrastructure then there would be scant hope of the climate targets being met -- so it'll be interesting to see how things develop. 

The First Minister's programme for government included a Future Transport Fund of £50 million pledged over 5 years. While this is welcome, it's questionable whether it will be sufficient to achieve sustainable transport goals, such as the climate targets or the commitment to achieve a 10% modal share for cycling by 2020.

The government hasn't yet indicated whether it intends to have another run at implementing its Large Retailer Levy (the "Tesco Tax"). We wrote to the transport minister about this in March. As it's something the SNP promoted while in minority government, one would hope they'd be prepared to take this forward, albeit perhaps in a modified form, now they're in the majority. 

The Parliament has followed the new Ministerial structure, with an Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee replacing the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee from the last parliamentary session. Climate change policy has been added to the rural affairs / environment brief, to form the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. The proposed ICI Committee members are Jackson Carlaw, Malcolm Chisholm, Neil Findlay, Jamie Hepburn, Adam Ingram, Gordon MacDonald, and Maureen Watt; we'd welcome any information you might have on them.

Labour, the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems have named their shadow spokespersons, while Labour have already started picking over the bones of their election defeat with a review, to which they are inviting views.

We've recruited a new volunteer, Shawn Lenker, who's going to be working with us over the next few months to help get us up to speed with the new Parliament. Shawn has previously interned with a US Senator -- so weÕll see whether his American experience can help us influence what develops in the Parliament.

Given how critical transport is for ensuring that the Scottish climate targets are met, it's now imperative that the government ensures that the proposals set out in the RPP are funded as part of the Scottish Budget for 2012/13 and future years. The Scottish Budget will be a main focus of our work over the next 6-9 months. Transport Scotland's civil servants are already commencing work on next year's Scottish Budget, and we'll be ensuring that they're aware of our views of the importance of funding for sustainable transport. We'd welcome thoughts from members regarding what proposals you'd like to see us advocate, and we imagine that we'll be looking to call on your support for making the case for sustainable transport.

We're nearing completion of the 'Travel Cost Calculator' project that Jolin Warren has been carrying out over the past year. The project is scoping out a tool which, amongst other things, would calculate the productivity benefits of using public transport over cars and planes. 

We also have a minor role in the 'Developing Car Clubs in Scotland' project. The project follows on from the report we published last year which led to a £200,000 grant being made available to Carplus to expand car clubs into rural areas. We were therefore pleased to see the launch of a car club in Dunbar by the local carsharing club, SpareWheels.

We were encouraged to see the SNP's commitment to implement a national transport smartcard in their election manifesto. We have written to the transport minister, asking him for a meeting to discuss how we could help ensure the early delivery of a Scottish smartcard. Calum McCallum recently had a letter in the Herald setting out the case for the smartcard, in response to suggestions that its roll-out across Scotland could be delayed.

We are working closely with the Rail Freight Group to promote an improved and extended Freight Facilities Grant scheme. This follows our successful campaign to retain the FFGs in this year's Scottish Budget. We have written to all of the new MSPs regarding the benefits of rail freight and will continue to promote the case for this in Parliament.

Of particular concern to us at the moment is the Edinburgh Tram project. We feel that the current difficulties with the project reflect very badly on Edinburgh, and Scotland as a whole, and that the project needs firm and clear management. We would encourage those who expressed support for the Tram project when it was first planned to again express their support for what will be a great addition to Edinburgh's public transport services. The City of Edinburgh Council are due to clarify the future of the project on 30 June.

Finally, we had an excellent turn-out at May's Members' Session. We heard a robust presentation from Friends of the Earth Scotland's new chief executive Stan Blackley -- on only his fourth day in post -- about how we might go about engaging with the new majority administration at Holyrood. Stan also reported that the M74 is being given a Royal Opening on 28 June. We thought it was in the dark days of the 1980s when dignitaries were wheeled out to open motorways -- but it seems that this still happens in Glasgow. We see that the Duke of Gloucester (no, we hadn't heard of him either!) is to cut the ribbon. It should be remembered that FoES, as part of the Joint Action against the M74 coalition, defeated the M74 proposal at Public Local Inquiry (pdf link); the scheme was only built because of the refusal of the Government to accept the result of the independent planning process, which concluded that the road should not be built on economic, social and environmental grounds.

Ramblers Scotland appear to have gained concessions from Transport Scotland regarding their campaign to secure an underpass of the A9. 

Living Streets are planning to revive the Pavement Parking bill that they initiated in the last Parliament. 

Bike Week begins on 18 June. East Dunbartonshire Cycle Coop are organising an impressive-looking Cycle Festival on 19 June, while in Edinburgh, Spokes have their annual Bike Breakfast on 23 June. 

Sustrans have released their annual Hands Up Survey. This has found that 49% of Scotland's children are getting to school actively -- either by walking, cycling, using a scooter or skateboard. However, this is nowhere near the figures from twenty years ago which showed as many as 62% of pupils travelling to school on foot. Sustrans have also launched a free iPhone app for the National Cycle Network.

Stagecoach have made further investment in low emission buses, while it has been reported that they are planning to use landfill gases (one of the few biofuels that probably is acceptable) to fuel some of the their buses in England.

We're very pleased to welcome Friends of the Far North Line as our most recent new member group. FoFNL are holding their AGM in Wick on Saturday 18 June.

The Borders Railway project continues to move forward and Campaign for Borders Rail has had useful discussions with representatives of the two companies bidding to build the line. It is expected that the preferred bidder will be announced in the late summer.

ScotRail have announced that new Class 380 trains will also be operating on services to North Berwick & Dunbar from 13 June.

We were very happy to join East Coast for the launch of its new Flying Scotsman service. This offers an early-morning, 4 hour rail connection between Edinburgh and London, with only a single stop (at Newcastle).

CalMac have a new addition to their fleet, the MV Finlaggan, and have launched a prize draw to win tickets.

Finally, the University of Edinburgh is holding an event on 20 June on 'The environment, families and relationships', which should be useful for people working on behaviour change campaigns.

The Campaign for Better Transport are calling for people to write to their MPs to oppose UK government proposals for longer lorries, while Friends of the Earth are encouraging people to take part in their Biofuels Action Alert, inviting people to contact their MPs saying that biofuels are a false solution to transport fuel.

There are various ongoing Department for Transport consultations on topics such as air passenger duty, longer lorries, and high speed rail, and details of these can be found on our website. We also understand that a consultation on the Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP) will commence in mid-June: we will of course be responding in support of this important rail electrification programme.

This newsletter has been put together by new Transform Scotland volunteer, Zoe Blah. Please feel free to email Zoe with your suggestions for content for next month's newsletter.