Glasgow Airport Rail Link Bill: Final Stage

Ms Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab): I thank the convener for her stewardship of the bill through the parliamentary process. As the minister said, Parliament has already debated the economic contribution that GARL can make to the economic competitiveness of the whole of the west of Scotland—that is the essential case for the bill.

My coalition colleagues will deal in their speeches with some of the wider metropolitan benefits. I will mention some of the more local economic benefits. For example, 650 new jobs will be created in Renfrewshire in the next 10 years and some 700 jobs will be created in Paisley town centre once the line starts to operate. Additional benefits will include extra office space, additional visitor expenditure and superior rail links to Glasgow and beyond.

I urge members who still have anxieties about whether the patronage estimates will be met to consider the encouraging evidence that we have heard during the bill’s passage about lines such as the Larkhall to Milngavie line, on which patronage levels have been considerably up on the promoter’s original estimates. In that optimistic vein, I draw Parliament’s attention to an agreement that has been reached in the past 48 hours between Renfrewshire Council and Strathclyde Passenger Transport concerning the St James playing fields in Paisley. As some members know, the St James playing fields are the biggest concentration of football pitches in the west of Scotland. I can do no better than John Lyle, the general secretary of the local Paisley and district amateur football league, who said yesterday:

“It’s like Christmas has come early! I’ve been a member of this league for 50 years and can remember playing in the 1950s with nothing but a cold water trough outside the clubhouse.

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The Glasgow Airport Rail Link is the best thing that’s ever happened to St James playing fields and we’re delighted with the new changing rooms, drainage system and alternative pitches being put in place by SPT.”

After that, I can only congratulate all the parties that have an interest in the St James Playing fields and sports in Scotland on reaching such a welcome agreement.

As we move on and pass over responsibility for the construction stage to SPT, I urge that organisation to remain mindful of local concerns about the impact of the link. There is further work to do to relocate and compensate businesses that will be displaced and disrupted and continuing consultation of local residents is necessary. I welcome the community liaison groups that have been set up and which are operating—they will meet this week—but there is more to be done if we are to meet the ambitious and encouraging timetable for construction that will begin next year and will be delivered by 2010. In particular, I mention the need to upgrade Paisley Gilmour Street station. It is not included in the project, but SPT has said that it will consider the matter.

I welcome Brian Adam’s endorsement of the scheme, but his conversion is somewhat late and I am not sure that word of it has reached Renfrewshire, where the local SNP candidates persist in calling GARL

“the wrong route, in the wrong place and at the wrong price”.

I suspect that voters in the west of Scotland will make their own judgments on the wisdom of turning our backs on 700 additional local jobs and the economic competitiveness that the line will bring.

After so many years, the Glasgow airport rail link is with us. It is a visionary development that is now on the point of delivery. Given that it will strengthen the physical infrastructure of the west of Scotland and bring direct economic benefits to the whole of the west of Scotland metropolitan area, it deserves Parliament’s support.