Transform Scotland - For Sustainable Transport

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27 September 2011

Transform Scotland newsletter –– September 2011

Newsletter -- September 2011 masthead

Scottish Budget fails sustainable transport


The Scottish Government's Spending Review 2011 and Draft Budget 2012-13 were announced last Wednesday (21 September). In response, we have published a commentary offering our views on the decisions which have been made in regard to sustainable transport:

http://www.transformscotland.org.uk/spending-review-initial-analysis-from-transform-scotland.aspx

In the run up to the Spending Review announcement, we published a briefing paper which summarised what we saw as three ‘Key tests for transport’. Sadly, the Spending Review and Draft Budget do not provide the clear, transparent commitments for investment that are needed for sustainable transport. We have isolated three main problem areas of the Spending Review:

  • The Government's climate legislation has not been backed by funding for the plan which would allow the targets to be met (the RPP);
  • Support for Active Travel has been slashed and the successful Freight Facilities Grant has again been abolished;
  • There is no evidence of prioritising sustainable transport and maintenance of existing infrastructure over polluting new road-building.

So what now?


The Draft Budget will now be subject to scrutiny by the Scottish Parliament’s committees. We will be preparing evidence for the ICI and RACCE committees. (It does, of course, remains to be seen what level of scrutiny the committees will offer given that they are dominated by SNP members.)

We have already appeared before the RACCE committee as part of a Stop Climate Chaos Scotland panel of witnesses. The SCCS campaign on the Budget, of which we are a supporter, continues and more information on this action can be found online.

The RACCE call for evidence on the Budget is open until Wednesday 19 October. The ICI and other committees have, at time of writing, yet to issue their calls for evidence. The Budget process will continue until it is finalised by Parliament early in the New Year.

We’d very much like to hear your views on the announcements. It would be useful to know if you feel we’ve missed anything, got anything wrong, or if you’ve identified any opportunities which we might be able to follow up.


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