THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH DRIVERS
IN SCOTLAND
Our Campaign on Edinburgh Airport Links
Most people in Scotland are aware of the massive expenditure proposed to link Edinburgh Airport to the city and to afford speedy airport connection to the rest of the country.
The Association of British Drivers was invited to make a written submission to the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link Bill Committee. We saw an opportunity to develop the airport rail link into a means of accessing train travel but were concerned by three aspects in particular – the sheer cost of the project, the technical risks of tunneling under Edinburgh Airport’s main runway and, but by no means least, the folly of trying to avoid making adequate provision to accommodate car travel – the quickest, most flexible and most direct way to travel. To see full details of that submission click here
Bruce Young, our East of Scotland Co-ordinator, was then invited to give oral evidence to the Committee and, accompanied by our Scottish Chairman, Peter Spinney, he attended at The Scottish Parliament, on Tuesday 13 June 2006 and had a robust discussion with the Committee. It was well received but appears not to have influenced their thinking! To see the Scottish Parliament’s “near verbatim” record of their discussion click here
At that Committee Meeting, Bruce circulated to the Members a newspaper review of a book “Megaprojects and Risk” by a transport expert, Bent Flyvbjerg. In a very entertaining way it highlighted the tendency of major public construction projects to be promoted on fictitiously low initial costings to win approval, the true costs being revealed only over a period once there was a sense of commitment to the project despite ever-increasing costs. To read the review which appeared in "The Times", to whom we are indebted for this link click here) This will open in a new browser window. It should be noted that this article is © "The Times" 16th April 2003 and we appreciate their permission to offer you this link.
We have already recently seen this in the construction of the Scottish Parliament building itself and in the promotion of Edinburgh’s tram project by Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (tie), the Edinburgh City Council-owned transport management company which had been formed to drive through that project.
Approval of the project as it was specified was given following assurances on costs from tie which had been commissioned by the Scottish Executive to promote the Airport Rail Link project.
Only the intervention of the SNP following the May 2007 elections put this potentially exorbitant project on hold, pending identification of a more cost-effective alternative.
With the SNP Scottish Government in place the direct rail link to Edinburgh Airport was very quickly given short shrift. They would also have liked to be rid of the trams venture in Edinburgh as well, however being a minority government this was not possible. We therefore provide a number of links to "The Scotsman" newspaper which allows you to track "progress" on the tram/train concept.
This first link takes you to an article appearing on the 25th September 2007 and refers to a Report which favours a tram link to the airport over a direct rail link. Click here to view
The second link is from "The Scotsman" dated 29th September 2007 and refers to an article regarding Scottish Government Ministers being set to abandon the direct rail link to the airport. Click here to view
The third link is also from the 29th September and refers to the Airport Authority's view on the demise of EARL. Click here to view
Finally, the fourth link refers to an article dated 29th February 2008 which gives details of a review of the suitability of different link points or interchanges between the tram and the rail network. Click here to view
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