New Petitions

Thank you very much. I thank the committee for allowing me to appear today. The subject of the petition is a Forth rail link. I am a Borderer, so rail provision is an issue that is somewhat ingrained in me. It is a sore subject, particularly in Hawick, where I was born and raised. However, in Fife, it gives me a unique perspective and an insight into what happens when demand outstrips the availability of public infrastructure.

The damage done by the Beeching cuts was systemic and long lasting. In looking at the bottom line in terms of profitability, the UK Government neglected to anticipate the collateral damage that would be caused by removing viable rail infrastructure. The railway left and, subsequently, the mills could not get their goods out. The end result of that was mass unemployment in the Borders and, basically, a town dying.

That is an extreme example of what happens when demand outstrips the available infrastructure but, although it is not at the same level as in Fife, it is a perfect example of what will happen—albeit over a more protracted period—if transportation fails to keep pace with population growth.

The Forth rail link matters. The project would benefit not only Fife and Clackmannanshire but, indeed, any area north of Fife because of rail connectivity. It would decrease transit times and expand commuter access to Scotland’s major cities. It would take around 10 per cent of freight off our roads and put it on to rail, which could only be good for the environment and congestion.

11:00

Let us call a spade a spade. The A907, which runs parallel to the west Fife villages, is the main road through Dunfermline. By all rights, it is a bit of a joke because of potholes, traffic lights and traffic jams. The A907 and the road system are an immediate turn off for visitors, commuters, local business and investment in the local area. My father is a daily commuter on the road and refers to it by many names, none of which are repeatable in polite company.

The A985, which is the other main road that runs parallel with the west Fife villages, is the interjoining road between Kincardine and Rosyth. Consider the importance of that road. It is the main link road—the trunk road—between the motorway and the Forth bridges at one end and Kincardine and the upper Forth crossing at the other.

By all indications, we can reduce the freight on the roads by up to 10 per cent through transfer to rail. If we can do the same with commuters going back and forward to Stirling, Alloa, Edinburgh and Glasgow, it will help tremendously. We are in the process of building a brand spanking new bridge because the existing one cannot handle the capacity that is being pushed over it each day, so the end result of such a reduction would be to reduce the amount of damage to the new bridge, the old bridge and the road infrastructure.

The Forth circle rail link would be good for the environment, local business, local commuters and the local public. At the same time, it would be good for anybody to the north. It would be good for anybody in Clackmannan to get to Edinburgh or for anybody in Dunfermline to go in the opposite direction to Stirling and Glasgow. It would speed up transit times and it is just, generally, common sense.

We have been talking back and forward with local MSPs and councillors, but Fife Council has done a Scottish transport appraisal guidance report on the link. That report is dated 2010. I believe that a STAG report has just been released on the Levenmouth railway and that one is pending for the St Andrews side of things, but there has been no update on the Forth rail link—or the Forth circle, as it is known in the STAG report—since 2010.

It is funny that you should mention that because, two or three days ago, I was at a Common Weal meeting at which the Levenmouth rail guys spoke. Based on their figures, I believe that the cost to viability ratio is something like 1.1 or 1.2. Basically, they would get £1.2 for every £1 that was invested in that infrastructure. The addition of the Forth rail link, which would give the Fife circle direct connectivity to Clackmannan and on to Glasgow, would raise the profitability and viability of the Levenmouth rail link to something in the region of 2.2. Building the Forth rail link would almost double the cost to profit ratio and the viability of that line.

That is not to mention the fact that, although the projections are from 2010, it is projected that the Forth rail link would cost £2.2 million to run. It would provide about £2.06 million of revenue but, at the same time, the intrinsic benefits to Fife and the surrounding area would be closer to £2.4 million. Basically, that means spending £2 million a year with £4 million coming back in benefits.

I have always found that, with rail, one of the issues is that people tend to look at the bottom line and ask whether a particular line is profitable without considering the intrinsic benefits to the local area and everything else round about it. That is exactly where the Beeching cuts went wrong. It is exactly the same in Fife. The Forth rail link will give other projects a chance in the future. It will give them more viability, in terms of the ability to set them up properly. At the same time, it will give an opportunity to provide a much-needed commuter service and reduce strain on existing capacity.

I will be brutally honest with you. Trying to have a proper dialogue with Fife Council is like trying to get blood out of a stone. We have hit a few brick walls over the past couple of months. I have spoken to the local MSP—her name escapes me for the moment.

We have been having a dialogue with Fife Council, but it has been limited. When we contacted Clackmannanshire Council—the proposal affects Clackmannanshire just as much as it does Fife—it said that we need to speak to Fife, then Fife said that we need to speak to Clackmannanshire. That is why we have lodged the petition with the Parliament. It needs direction from the national level. It needs the Parliament to bring both sides together. Everyone needs to get together in one room for a committee meeting to hammer out the issues and discuss exactly what needs to be done.

The communication that we have had with Fife Council, local MSPs and local candidates has all been positive and I know that you are supportive of rail in the area. The dialogue has been positive, but it is not going very far.

I am the MSYP for Dunfermline in West Fife, which will be massively affected by the issues raised in the petition. I surveyed my electorate and 22 per cent disagreed that it would benefit tourism, which means that an astonishing 78 per cent of the people whom I surveyed said that it would benefit tourism. Seventy-eight per cent of people said that it would take travel off the roads, 89 per cent of people said that it would help them gain jobs and 100 per cent of people whom I surveyed support the campaign.

Two of the MSYPs in Fife, including me, were elected on the back of improving transport in Fife, especially railway links, so the issue is pertinent to young people as well as older people. It has the full backing of the Scottish youth parliamentarians in Fife. The Scottish Parliament’s support for our campaign would make a massive difference.

I am aware of that. It is, shall we say, a battle on many fronts. It is a new campaign—we are only six months out the gate. We have been talking about it for quite a few years, but it is a new campaign. We are chasing as many routes as possible. We want it known from day 1 that the Forth rail link will benefit a lot of people nationally—not just people in Fife and Clackmannanshire, but anybody north of Fife who takes the train.

We want what we are doing to be on record with the Parliament. Yes, we are chasing it up with Fife Council. The next step, based on the discussions that we have had with Fife Council, is to get the STAG report updated and move it through the council’s procedures, to get it on the books. Obviously the issues affect Clackmannanshire, so we need to raise them with Clackmannanshire Council as well.

It is early days; we will admit that. It is just a case of getting everybody in the same room.

I will be contacting the MSYPs in Clackmannanshire, to see whether they can get a dialogue with their local MSPs, councillors and MPs on this topic and raise support from Clackmannanshire in the Scottish Youth Parliament. There will be dialogue between young people in Clackmannanshire and their elected representatives; it will not just be young people in Fife who talk to their councillors and MSPs. There will be a dialogue between Clackmannanshire MSYPs and, I hope, Stirling MSYPs, as the issue is pertinent to them as well.

It is a bit of a double whammy. Longannet is going; it will be shut down and it is unfortunate that those people will lose their jobs, but it opens a wealth of opportunities for the area in regard to freight.

Going back to the Levenmouth extension, the rails are still there and the extension runs directly past Diageo, for instance, which is one of the biggest breweries in Scotland. At the moment, in terms of the freight capacity on that line, trains have to travel to Dunfermline and then reverse back down the line to go to Rosyth. There is already an extension running to Rosyth.

If a spur was put in, which is what plan A calls for—it is called the Crombie point—that would allow southbound commuter trains to run directly on to the Edinburgh south line to head towards Edinburgh. At the same time, it would give interconnectivity for the freight trains so that they could continue straight down at Rosyth.

The 2010 STAG report was clear on the point that the beach-head and the port of Rosyth are vastly underused as a direct result of transport capacity in Fife. The STAG report could not make that point any clearer, so that is another opportunity straight off the bat. We have freight provision there. The line will require some upgrades as regards passing loops for freight trains, but if we have the proper link in place—if we have the Crombie point in place—straight away the port of Rosyth could be used a lot more than it is.

I have had conversations with one of the representatives of Bruno Steinhoff, of Steinhoff International, which owns furniture retailers including Harveys. The representative spoke highly of the possibility of being able to bring in items at the port of Rosyth, or at least that was the indication that they gave. There are the breweries and there is even Babcock International Group, for instance, which has a base at the port of Rosyth as well. It is all freight opportunity.

At the moment, we have two docks sitting empty because of the ferry crossing. They could be used for cargo. There is enough space there to expand. There is enough space there for us to put in industrial complexes and for people to be able to transport goods in and out of the port and straight north.

We might have lost Longannet and a lot of the freight traffic estimate was based on that but, at the end of the day, it opens up a wealth of opportunities in relation to being able to put other types of freight on that line. It opens up the opportunity to have a landing dock at Rosyth, which I believe is sorely needed. It is all about jobs and investment. The problem is that, currently, no company worth its salt will look at Fife and think that the transport infrastructure is up to the job.

It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario: until we have the infrastructure, the companies will not decide to come to Fife and we will end up losing them. The perfect example is the new high speed rail link that is being built down south—HS2 and HS1. Make no mistake, we are in direct competition with our neighbours down south and if a company looks at the UK as a whole and says that the infrastructure down south is better than it is here, that is where they will go. We will lose factories and we will lose trade and investment for freight because our infrastructure is simply not up to it.

To go back to the original question, I say yes, the freight traffic estimate was based on Longannet, but the wealth of opportunities that such a development would open up is overwhelming. A lot of companies that ship from down south would rather bring their goods straight into Rosyth, right into the back of a wagon and away north on the train.

11:15

It is funny that you should mention that. I do not have the STAG report with me, but appendices A, B, C, D and E list the responses of businesses in Fife to the consultation. Most of them are positive about moving their workforce and their goods.

As I have already said, I agree that the campaign is just out of the gate and the legwork will be done. We will contact companies in Fife and ones that have expressed an interest in possibly coming to Fife.

I will go back to the STAG report. I understand that it is from 2010 and that it needs to be updated.

The report contains four different options. Option A was modifications to the existing line. Option B was to use the line as is. Option C was partial line usage with supplementary buses. Option D was basically just to use buses.

Everything from environmental impact assessment to cost analysis says that getting the line up and running and making changes to it would cost more; the figure was about £56 million. However, it is the old story: if you are going to do it, you might as well do it right.

The STAG report contains every single part of what would need to be done to the line in order to make it viable. The beauty is that, because Longannet re-established the line and operated it as a coal line, and because a lot of work was done to maintain it to keep the coal trains running, the modifications that would be required would be less than they were back when the STAG report was done.

The STAG report calls for £56 million, but I think that £8.7 million of that is for contingencies, so we are talking about an overall bill of around £48 million to re-establish the railway line. However, the railway line already runs through each of the villages. All that we are talking about is the establishment of platforms. Remedial work would be done to the line to upgrade it from a 35mph to a 60mph track and to include passing loops for freight trains.

Option A, which is preferred and makes most sense, is to build the spur for southbound trains to Edinburgh. However, that would use an existing rail line and it would not change any direction or any of the foundations that that line sits on. It would mean nothing like that. It would be a simple case of putting in signalling and a few passing points and building the spur. An existing resource would be used and expanded on to make it economically viable for passenger and freight services. The two together make that option more than viable.

I cannot tell members what the interest is like in the local area. The interest is overwhelming—it is as simple as that. Two or three buses are needed no matter where people go from the west Fife villages, unless we are talking about Dunfermline. Maybe a bus and then a train or two buses will be needed just to get to Edinburgh. We were joking about that in the elevator coming up here. I had to take three buses to get here because we do not have a rail link in my village, which the proposal would deliver.

I cannot stress enough that existing infrastructure would be used and improved on. With the spur, the existing infrastructure would simply be taken and made better, more economical and more viable for the local area. Any other subsequent projects would be made more viable, as well, of course.

The entire options are detailed in the STAG report; it just needs to be updated. I will have conversations with Fife Council about getting the STAG report updated. I believe that the Levenmouth report has just been updated for the second time.

The passenger services are not new. Extending the Glasgow to Stirling service would be all that would need to be done. That would be an extension of existing services. Maybe one or two extra trains would be run, so even the expenditure on rolling stock would be greatly reduced by the building of the new extension to Alloa. The service that already runs there would be used; it would simply be extended to Dunfermline or southbound to Edinburgh.

As we see it, we are not just looking at the short-term view that it is a lot of money to spend on a rail link. It is not just about the short-term view; it is about the long-term gains that we will get. If people in the west Fife villages want to go to university in Stirling, Edinburgh or Glasgow, for example, going there will take two or three hours on the bus. The proposal would mean that people could travel directly to universities from the west Fife villages, so their horizons would be opened up. I do not think that anybody on the committee could oppose that. The proposal would open up people’s employability horizons and open up the Stirling, Clackmannanshire and Glasgow markets for employment.

As I said earlier, 78 per cent of people agreed that the proposal would broaden their horizons.

As we know, rural poverty is a big issue. I am on the transport, environment and rural affairs committee of the Scottish Youth Parliament, which highlighted that bad public transport is a big problem in relation to rural poverty. The petition suggests a solution to real problems that people have. The Scottish Parliament quite often takes decisions that might change people’s lives, but people do not see those decisions. This proposal is tangible and would transform people’s lives in the villages of west Fife. At the moment, those people are pretty much isolated from employment, education and even something as simple as a social life.

I agree with Lewis Akers. You do not realise the strain.

I have a unique set of circumstances. My mother has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. I can assure you that getting on a train is much easier than getting on a coach. The low-liner buses rattle, squeak and take forever to get where you are going. Access to trains would be essential.

Cairneyhill is slightly larger than most of the other villages. A lot of the smaller villages, such as Culross, Valleyfield and—I am trying to remember the one with the doctor’s surgery in it; I will get slapped by the local constituents for not remembering the name of their village—get cut off by snow. This is a perfect example. In 2008, there was a massive snowfall and the west Fife villages were completely cut off. You could not get to the doctor’s surgery or the local pharmacy—you could not get anywhere. There is no problem for the train, though. A little bit of track clearing and away it goes. Our proposal would give priority access to those people and enable them to get out of their villages during the winter.

It happens quite regularly that those villages are cut off and, because they are classified as small villages, the response time is nowhere near what it would be in major metropolitan areas. In Cairneyhill, for instance, it took Fife Council two weeks to send a gritter round the street where I lived. I was in one of the bigger villages. For the smaller villages, it was even worse. It really takes its toll. We are talking about access to universities, schools and workplaces, as well as access for business people to come up here and talk about trade and investment in the local area. We are basically talking about the movement of every person and every bit of freight—everything in the local area. Our proposal has real tangible value.

I have been in communication with Abellio on the matter, and I got the one-line response that it will implement whatever it is directed to implement by the Scottish Government.

The STAG report was produced in conjunction with SEStran.

Thank you.

Thank you.