23 April 2006
The new business plan for Transport Scotland, the government agency in charge of road and rail, has been labelled "mince" because it fails to tackle climate-wrecking pollution.
Transport campaigners are demanding that ministers reject the plan, which doesn't even mention the growing threats from climate change. This contradicts assurances that transport policy-makers would respond to the problem, they say.
Transport Scotland launched its first business plan on Wednesday. It promised to deliver a £1.2 billion programme of investment in road and rail, and to maintain trunk roads.
But nowhere in its 20 pages did it say anything about the carbon pollution that vehicles emit, the global warming it causes, or the need to do anything about it. This is despite climate change having been repeatedly identified by political leaders as one of the most serious problems facing the world.
"The business plan is completely unacceptable in its current state," said Colin Howden, the director of the sustainable transport campaign, TRANSform Scotland.
"Scottish Ministers should instruct Transport Scotland to revise the document so that proper account is taken of the Executive's own climate change strategy."
Howden pointed out that when the Environment Minister, Ross Finnie, launched the climate strategy three weeks ago he said that every sector of government would have to take action. Finnie singled out transport as one of three areas where priority action was needed.
"But now we have a major new Executive agency launching its operational plan - and it completely omits reference to climate change," Howden complained.
"This sums up government's track record on climate change. They're very keen to mouth platitudes of concern but when it comes to action they dish up the same old mince."
When asked to respond, Transport Scotland issued a statement which again didn't mention climate change. It pointed out that the delivery of the Executive's vision for "sustainable transport" was the fundamental purpose of its corporate plan.
"Seventy per cent of the transport budget over the life of the 10 year investment plan will be focussed on public transport," the agency's spokeswoman said.
"The business plan sets out the projects Transport Scotland is bringing forward that will significantly contribute to this sustainable transport objective. These include a series of major rail projects which aim to encourage more people to use public transport, rather than cars."
Transport Scotland used a process known as Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) to assess its projects. "Environment issues lie at the heart of this," stated the spokeswoman. "STAG assesses air quality, water quality, drainage and flood defence, noise and vibration, biodiversity, geology, visual impact, agriculture and cultural heritage."
The Scottish Executive, however, insisted that it was committed to tackling pollution from all sectors, including transport. "Our new Scottish Share and Target show how Scotland will make a more than equitable contribution to UK climate change commitments," said an Executive spokesman.
"All sectors have a responsibility to contribute to this target and we will look to identify additional sectoral contributions over the coming year."
Transport Scotland's business plan didn't get much attention last week as its publication coincided with the launch of the Executive's long-awaited National Transport Strategy.
The transport minister, Tavish Scott, confirmed that the Executive was planning to ditch its targets to cut the growth in road traffic because of the relentless rise in car use. This was first revealed by the Sunday Herald on 2 April.
Unfortunately, the need to tackle increasing car use is becoming more pressing because of the failure of car manufacturers to cut the pollution belched out by exhausts. According to expert German consultants, manufacturers are going to break their promise to get average emissions of carbon dioxide from new cars below 140 grams per kilometre by 2008-09.
The Sunday Herald is sponsoring a major conference on the Executive's transport strategy on Monday 8th May in Edinburgh. For further details phone 0131 467 7714 or go here.
