Halting airport rail link costs taxpayer £40m

The controversial decision to scrap the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (Garl) has cost the taxpayer £40 million. 

In a Parliamentary Question Paisley North MSP Wendy Alexander asked Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson to provide a breakdown of how much the cancellation of GARL had cost the taxpayer and what was still due to be paid (note 3). The  Minister’s answer showed that the figure had jumped from the previous estimate of around £25m to £40m.

Much of the money has gone on terminating contracts and paying out compensation for the cancellation of the project.

The figures detailed in Stevenson’s parliamentary answer show that the costs incurred relating to “the close out” of the Garl project were almost £19m on branch line works, £7.6m for combined work on the Glasgow to Paisley main line and branch line and around £6.75m paid for land, legal and consultancy bills.

The figures do not include VAT, which would add another £5m, nor the £3m cost of the original Bill to allow work to go ahead.

Wendy Alexander said: “It’s an absolute disgraceful waste of public money. Scottish Government ministers have now admitted their decision to cancel the Glasgow Airport Rail Link has cost over £40m.

“Most other European countries have direct rail links from their airports. We badly need this investment to make our transport system fit for the 21st century and improve Scotland’s attractiveness as a place to do business. A large part of the work on the project had already been completed and the rail link would have created an additional 1300 jobs in the West of Scotland – 650 to Paisley.

“I believe that jobs and the economy should be the Scottish Government’s biggest priority just now. Instead, John Swinney has chosen to waste huge amounts of taxpayers’ money winding the project up. The Scottish Government received an extra £82m in additional funding from the previous Labour government’s spring Budget earlier this – that should have been used to save the link. The cost could be spread over the life of the project and did not have to be paid in a single year.”

Notes

1. See Glasgow Herald, 7th June 2010: click here

2. See Evening Times, 7th June 2010: click here

3. S3W-33877 – Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab) (Date Lodged Tuesday, May 25, 2010): To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide a breakdown of the money spent, and due to be spent, on the cancelled branch line element of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link project.

Answered by Stewart Stevenson (Thursday, June 03, 2010): I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-33171 on 22 April 2010, which sets out the costs incurred up until financial year end on 31 March 2010. All answers to written parliamentary questions can be found on the Parliament’’s website, the search facility for which can be found at www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/PQA/Default.aspx.

A breakdown of the money already spent, and forecast to be spent, on the Glasgow Airport Rail Link branch line is set out in the following table:

S3W-33245 – Wendy Alexander (Paisley North) (Lab) (Date Lodged Friday, April 16, 2010): To ask the Scottish Executive what its best estimate is of the long-term job creation potential associated with the Glasgow Airport Rail Link project.

Answered by Stewart Stevenson (Friday, April 23, 2010): The original assessment of the wider economic benefits arising from the introduction of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (GARL) project (Roger Tym and Partners Assessment of Wider Economic Benefits June 2005, commissioned by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport) reported the potential for:

650 jobs over a 10 year period (or 65 jobs per annum) within Glasgow, and

through development opportunities within Paisley town centre, of an office market, 675-700 jobs over a three to four year period.

These figures were on the basis of employment growth forecasts for the affected local authority areas in the period 2003-11 and with the introduction of GARL passenger services in 2009.

It is reasonable to expect that the completion of the Paisley Corridor Improvements project and the introduction of resultant passenger services on the Ayrshire and Inverclyde routes will have a beneficial impact on the local economy and therefore opportunities for employment.