Transport Scotland have announced that the large car park next to the current Forth road bridge on the South side of the Forth will be closed to heavy goods vehicles from the 8th of August. This is to allow it to be used for staff cars and coaches. Construction will begin on the site of the existing coach and staff car parks for the Forth replacement crossing education/contact centre and also Transport Scotland’s new National Traffic Control Centre.
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Tags: contact centre, Forth Replacement Crossing Education centre, National Traffic Control Centre, visitors centre
Following the publication of the comprehensive spending review on Wednesday by the government at Westminster, Finance Secretary John Swinney confirmed that the Forth Replacement Crossing would still go ahead. This is despite huge cuts to the capital spending budgets, with the Scotsman reporting that it would fall from £3.4billion this year to just £2.3billion in 2014/2015. That amounts to a cut of nearly £3bn over the coming four years.
The Scotsman ran a follow up article, outlining construction industry concerns that continuing with the new Forth bridge would hit other capital spending projects hard, including programmes to build new schools and hospitals.
For the conspiracy theorists – see (previously featured) Neil Craig’s post on the bizarre costings of the various options for Forth replacement crossing.
Other links from October
- A night time Forth bridge photo.
- A Google Sketchup model of the Forth Road bridge for use in Google Earth.
With the general election campaign in full swing, we explore each political parties stance on the Forth replacement crossing.
SNP
The Scottish National Party pledge that the Forth replacement crossing project is firmly protected from cuts to public expenditure. From their own press release on their party manifesto, they claim they will: “protect policies like free personal care, concessionary travel, the SNP Government’s £1.25 billion investment in new schools and the Forth Replacement Crossing”.
Labour
The labour position is not much different from the SNP’s with the party stating in it’s notes on the manifesto that it will build a replacement Forth crossing. Strangely it makes no mention of the new bridge in it’s actual manifesto.
Liberal Democrats
The Scottish Liberal Democrats make no mention of the new forth crossing in their manifesto
Conservatives
The Scottish Conservatives are also in favour of a new Forth Crossing, with their manifesto stating that “We support the construction of a new Forth crossing which needs to be recognised as the most pressing transport priority in Scotland.”
Green Party
The Scottish Green Party is the only party politically opposed to the bridge. On their website they state that they want to “fix the bridge, save billions”. They urge that following the review into cable detoriation on the old bridge, they could be repaired and replaced for just a fraction of the cost.