Policy

We need a vision for Glasgow’s transport future

By Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce

As time moves on from Finance Secretary John Swinney’s decision to axe the Glasgow Airport Rail Link, the decision is no easier to accept.

It remains disturbing that the first round of public sector cuts has seen the axing of a vital part of the transport jigsaw in the West of Scotland - a piece of capital infrastructure that would have directly benefited Glasgow and its economy.

As we understand it, out of the £400 million being spent on the entire GARL project, over £200m will now be lost to the regional economy of Glasgow just when we needed it most.

And we won’t have a direct rail link to the airport.

That investment would have safeguarded jobs, grown our local economy and boosted the importance of Glasgow Airport within the Scottish economy as a whole.

It would also have supported Glasgow’s position as the fastest growing business tourism and conference destination in Europe - according to planning consultants Roger Tym & Partners, GARL could help bring 52,500 additional UK and overseas visitors and contribute towards £10m in additional visitor expenditure every year to Glasgow, Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.

The Department for Transport estimates that passenger numbers at Glasgow Airport are predicted to almost double, from 8.2 million a year in 2003, to over 15 million passengers a year in 2030. BAA Scotland’s forecasts are even higher and indicate that passenger numbers could rise as high as 24 million by 2030.

At present, 95% of people travelling to Glasgow Airport do so by road - many on the congested M8. This is unacceptable for a modern city, both from a logistical and environmental point of view.

The rail link would provide more travel choice for these airport users - one train every 15 minutes - establishing a sustainable transport link to Glasgow Airport, which is a major employer and one of the biggest wealth generators in the region.

I have written to Mr Swinney inviting him to meet with the Glasgow business community to discuss these and other matters that relate to the city’s future success.

However while the fight to save GARL will continue until the Scottish Budget in February, a wider issue must now be addressed - what exactly is the Scottish Government’s vision for the future of transport in Glasgow and the West of Scotland?

It remains unclear as to what else is on offer and I will be challenging the Finance Secretary to set out his investment plans for Fastlink and other vital Glasgow projects.

These must include Crossrail, the long-mooted plan to link the rail systems north and south of the Clyde. This should have been a sister project to GARL, allowing direct access to both Central Station and Queen Street station from Glasgow Airport and enhancing connectivity with the rest of Scotland - but it has somehow found its way on to the back burner.

The Commonwealth Games is less than five years away, a once in a generation opportunity to get things right. While the Government’s commitment to improvements at Dalmarnock railway station is welcome, we need to invest further now to reap the benefits and to leave a real transport legacy. That is my focus.

It takes many – indeed too many - years to secure commitment to any investment of vision in our transport infrastructure. The GARL decision illustrates how it is worryingly easy to unravel that which has taken so long to achieve.

Mr Swinney’s statement to Parliament at the time of his GARL decision made a commitment to support financially other measures to improve Glasgow’s public transport, including Fastlink. However we need much more detail of what those measures are - for example is Fastlink simply a system of bus lanes, or are we talking major investment in modern bus technology, including a system of clearly defined service times at all stops?

We must have clarity now on the Scottish Government’s vision for the long term development of an integrated transport infrastructure to support the growth of the greater Glasgow region once the economic recovery begins.

Equally we must have clarity on the commitment that Transport Scotland has in developing transport infrastructure in the greater Glasgow region.

Mr Swinney stated his concern at the rise in costs associated with the GARL project and the discrepancy between those costs originally forecast and those now declared by Transport Scotland.

What I and other business leaders would now like to see is a clear and detailed publication of the exact cost over-runs for the project, particularly in reference to the £70m figure being quoted by Transport Scotland for preparatory works, a figure which has been called into question.

We need to be told why the GARL budget began at £120 million, stood at £200m when it left the auspices of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and ended up at nearly £400m on the day the project was cancelled.
 
But most of all, we also need to know the full detail of why this investment has now been withdrawn …

And what plans the Government has to ensure that Glasgow does not continue to lose out in the greater transport picture.