Transport plan is hotch-potch of re-hashed, half-baked notions

Sheriffhall roundabout, above, one of the transport schemes which need urgent attention, yet instead are monuments to dither and delay, says Sue Webber

And no wonder. Titled, A Draft Just Transition Plan for Transport in Scotland, the problem is it’s not just, isn’t a transition and it’s certainly not a plan. Instead, it’s a 93-page hotch-potch of re-hashed, half-baked notions, earnest ideas about how we should be leading our lives, but nothing resembling a blueprint for improving how we move people and goods from place to place efficiently.

There are no projects, no priorities, no timescales and certainly no costings, just the usual stuff about inequality and poverty as if everyone owning a car or jetting off for a well-earned holiday in the sun should feel guilty about it. It’s not as if there is a shortage of transport schemes which need urgent attention, yet this paper does not go into any of them.

Sheriffhall roundabout, Winchburgh Station, the Almond Cord to turn Edinburgh Gateway from a white elephant to bustling rail hub, the dualling of the A1, A9, A77 and A75, extending the Borders Rail line to Melrose and Hawick. All calling out for action, but instead are monuments to dither and delay.

In fact, they are quite proud of it being little more than a lot of hot air: “The draft Plan is not intended to set out new, standalone policies,” they say. “Instead, it is designed to make the connections between existing and developing policy, and serve as a guide for people across our society, to understand what a just transition means for transport.”

I have a fair idea of what people would think was a transition for transport in Scotland, which is if the Scottish Government actually got on with delivering new infrastructure quickly and efficiently instead of either finding reasons not to do things, or when they do to make a complete Horlicks of them.

We all know of the fiasco of ferries which cost about the same as a small aircraft carrier, but when they were built too big for the most practical port, Ardrossan, it really does beggar belief. With its disastrous nationalisation track record, no wonder there’s no mention of the SNP’s new plan to take it over.

What we get is stuff about maybe making car park spaces smaller, so people will stop buying SUVs, as if anything resembling an old Mini or a Ford Anglia is still on the market.

So poor road conditions like potholes discourages cycling? We made that argument on Edinburgh City Council back in 2017 when millions were being syphoned off to build cycle lanes.

The real joke is it’s taken the best part of two years to come up with it, the outcome of months of public events, over 100 of them, attended by 1000 people, and the end product is just the start of another consultation.

And this is on top of local authority consultations to produce schemes like Edinburgh’s mobility plan which threatens to make the city centre impermeable to anything bigger than a rickshaw.

The Just Transition paper looks very like another ploy to make the SNP look like it’s doing something while doing little except squandering more public money. The sooner they are transitioned into opposition the better.

Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Lothian