Halting airport rail link costs taxpayer £40m

Controversial: decision to scrap Garl

As published in the Glasgow Herald 7 June 2010
by Journalists Brian Currie and Stewart Paterson

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

Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson has admitted that the bill for winding up the project has jumped from a previous estimate of around £25m.

The information was uncovered by Paisley North MSP Wendy Alexander who asked Stevenson to provide a breakdown of how much the cancellation had already cost the taxpayer and what was still due to be paid.

Much of the money has gone on terminating contracts and paying out compensation for the cancellation of the £212m link between Paisley and the airport.

Alexander said it was an “absolutely disgraceful waste of public money” and accused Finance Secretary John Swinney of incompetence.

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.

Alexander said: “SNP 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.

“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. His incompetence and misguided priorities are breathtaking.”

Alexander previously suggested to Swinney that he use £82m in additional funding the Scottish Government received in consequential from the previous Labour government’s spring Budget to save the link.

She insisted that the costs could be spread over the life of the project and did not have to be paid in a single year.

Swinney said he had reluctantly scrapped the project because of the funding squeeze on Scotland. He blamed rising costs including moving a fuel farm at the airport which, it was claimed, had risen from £8m to more than £70m.

Garl has wide support from business leaders and Glasgow Airport managing director Amanda McMillan has warned that the city’s reputation, as well as its businesses, tourism and employment, would suffer as a result of the cancellation. She warned that axing the project would leave a “gaping hole in the airport’s surface access strategy, an issue which has a crucial bearing on passenger choice”.

BAA Scotland, the airport’s owners, are carrying out a strategic transport network study and officials from Glasgow and Renfrewshire councils and Transport Scotland have been asked for their views on how to improve public transport links to and from the airport without the rail link.

BAA said it was looking at developing a multi-agency forum to investigate the airport’s transport needs and to identify what would impede future growth.

Steve Inch, Glasgow City Council’s director of regeneration, in a report to councillors, said: “As a consequence of the cancellation of Garl and other more recent developments within the air services market, BAA have requested the key stakeholders to participate in a strategic transport network study, which will contribute to the current review of the airport masterplan and review of the surface access transport strategy which will come into effect in 2013.”