from Sunday Herald, 09 November 2008
The £50 million fiasco over the Cairngorm mountain railway is to be investigated by the Scottish government’s public spending watchdog, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
The huge amounts of taxpayer’s money lavished on the funicular railway near Aviemore by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) are going to be probed by Audit Scotland.
The launch of a major investigation has been hailed as a victory by environmental campaigners. They have been long been demanding an inquiry into what they see as a public funding “scandal”.
The Cairngorm funicular, which runs nearly all the way to the summit of Britain’s fifth highest mountain, has been plagued with controversy since it was first proposed in the early 1990s. Lack of visitors meant that it has been struggling to make money.
In May Cairngorm Mountain Limited, the company that operated the funicular, was taken into public ownership by HIE to prevent it from going bust. Independent estimates have suggested that the railway could end up costing the public purse more than £50 million, plus another £50 million should it have to be removed from the hill.
Now the Auditor General for Scotland, Robert Black, has submitted a report to the Scottish Parliament saying that he wants HIE’s funding of the funicular to be reviewed under section 22(3) of the Public Finance and Accountability (Scotland) Act 2000. This enables issues of concern arising from audits of public agencies to be investigated.
“Due to the long-running difficulties with the operation of the funicular, culminating with HIE’s decision to take Cairngorm Mountain Limited into public control, I have asked Audit Scotland to undertake a specific review of the project,” said Black.
“The review will examine both HIE’s plans for the future operation of the funicular and relevant historical events and activity. I intend to report to the Parliament in 2009.”
Alan Blackshaw, a former senior civil servant who quit as a director of the local enterprise agency over the funicular in 2000, described the investigation as “long overdue”. He has been researching the funicular’s finances for years, and urging Audit Scotland to intervene.
“This should at last establish the missing facts on the very high cost to the taxpayer,” he said. “And lead to a debate in the Scottish Parliament on what went wrong and where to go from here.”
Dave Morris, director of Ramblers Scotland and a veteran opponent of the funicular, was “delighted” by the investigation. “It is essential that lessons are learnt from this disastrous HIE adventure in the Cairngorms,” he said.
“We expect it will lead directly to a recommendation from the Scottish Parliament that HIE should transfer all of its landholding in the Cairngorms to the Forestry Commission or to the national park authority and depart from the mountain for good.”
The Sunday Herald reported in July that HIE had been accused by the Forestry Commission of trying the hide the multi-million pound problems plaguing the funicular. In September we disclosed that HIE had estimated the cost of removing the railway from the mountain at £50 million.
Last week it emerged that £13.3 million worth of grants to the highlands and islands may have to be repaid to the European Commission. The money, which EC auditors say has been incorrectly spent, could include some of a £2.7 million grant to the funicular railway.
An HIE spokesman stressed that no agreement had yet been reached on exactly what money was to be paid back. On the newly-launched investigation, he said: “Naturally, HIE will be pleased to co-operate fully with Audit Scotland.”
Last week the mountain railway was closed to the public so that the trains could be lifted off the track, checked and serviced. It is not expected to reopen until 5 December.
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