Official Report 284KB pdf
A77 (Southern Section Upgrade) (PE859)
Our first new petition is PE859. The petitioner, Sheena Borthwick, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to upgrade the southern section of the A77 between Ayr and Stranraer, including providing passing places every 6 miles and developing a bypass at Maybole.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am the managing director of West Sound, West FM and South West Sound FM. I am joined by my colleague, Alan Gordon, who is the route director of Stena Line. I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to present our sizeable petition, which has attracted just over 5,000 signatures in its e-format and in the area.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am the route director for Stena Line in Stranraer. Stena Line is the only company on the Irish sea that employs only United Kingdom seafarers. That brings major economic and social benefits to Stranraer and the surrounding area, where Stena Line is the biggest employer. Stena Line also operates the biggest fast ferry in the world. It is the size of a football pitch and can take up to 375 cars, or a combination of cars and lorries, which brings major benefits to Scotland through tourism and through imports and exports.
I will allow members who wish to make points or to ask questions to do so, but before that I will seek clarification from Mr Gordon.
I gave that presentation. Both roads are a problem. If I were asked to say which road is worse, I would say the A77 because of the quality of the road. The A75 between Stranraer and Newton Stewart is also very poor. That is the section of that road that has the worst accident rate.
So the A77 is your priority.
Yes.
I notice that there is a map in the paperwork that we have just received. From my understanding of it—perhaps you can confirm whether I am right—there seems to be a plan of work that will be carried out. Can you talk us through the plan?
We have worked in partnership with the Scottish Executive. With the investment in the new port at Cairnryan, four passing places have already been identified on the A77. Our problem is platooning of vehicles. People in Ayr can tell when the ferry has discharged because the traffic is all together by the time it arrives here. Statistics for the A77 and the A75 show that over the day the roads are not that busy. The problem is that all the traffic comes in a 15-minute spell. The other problem is that not only Stena Line but P&O operate from the port. Because all the traffic moves slowly, the vehicles from one ferry catch up with those from the previous ferry, so the amount of traffic that comes up the road at one time is doubled.
The yellow boxes on the map represent the planned work that is in preparation. Is there a timescale for that work?
There no timescale that we know of.
The red boxes on the map represent schemes that were to be announced in February 2003. Were those announcements made?
Some of the announcements were made.
That was when Stena Line announced that it would invest in the new port. The First Minister came down with the Minister for Transport to announce that the sections would be built.
Have the Scottish Executive and the local authorities given you timescales in response to the approaches that you have made to them? If so, what have they said?
For some of the proposals that are outlined in the red boxes on the map, commitments have been made that they will be ready for the opening of the new port in 2007. However, the question is about where we go after 2007. We know what has been committed to, but how will we develop the schemes as we go forward?
As a resident of Ayrshire—albeit that I live in north Ayrshire—I argue that Ayrshire has problems overall in respect of the roads into and out of the county, but even those of us who are from north Ayrshire accept that the A77 is an exceptional case. Congestion is not the only issue—there is also a very busy port and slow-moving heavy goods vehicles exacerbate the problems.
About three years ago, there was no awareness of the ferries' importance in Scotland, but there is now much more awareness in the Scottish Executive, which has led to more acceptance. We have worked in partnership with the Executive to see how we can develop schemes.
I have driven down the road to take my car on to the ferry and know exactly what you mean. On Saturday, I spoke to a person from Dumfries and Galloway who said exactly what you have said about passing places and heavy goods lorries, which are obviously slow-moving traffic.
I have no knowledge of that report.
I sympathise entirely with the petitioner; something must be done about upgrading the A77. What input has Stena Line had to the working group? What has come out of that group? As I said, there will be a report this year and the Executive has said that it will spend money and so on in the light of that report. Do you know what is in the report by Atkins Highways and Transportation? Has that organisation spoken to anyone in the working group to get ideas from them?
I cannot comment on that matter. Alan Gordon and I—Stena Line and West Sound—decided to work together because the working group was not working fast enough. I think that that answers your question.
Is Alan Gordon involved in the working group?
We were never invited to join it.
My other question is about whether you have been approached by the Executive or Atkins Highways and Transportation. Am I right that you have never been asked about the matter, although you had a petition with 48,000 signatures and now have another one with 5,000 signatures?
That is right.
I would like to ask a couple of questions about the paper that you gave us this morning and about a piece of information that was in the papers that we got prior to the meeting. I have to say that I am not familiar with the A77 south of Ayr, but I notice that the papers mention that the latest improvement is a 7.5km upgrading from Spitallhill to the Dutch House roundabout. Could you tell me where that is? Is that the area that skirts round Ayr?
That is the northern section.
Where is that?
It is between Glasgow and Ayr.
I am just looking at the map and wondering whether it was one of the projected yellow boxes, but it is not. So that is completed. It is not a—
It is difficult to pinpoint the road works, the upgrades and what has or has not been done. I am still waiting for clarification from the Scottish Executive, because I wanted a definitive list of work that is planned and work that is completed and of where we will go from there. I am part of the A77 working group and I am still waiting for that.
It is the area south of Ayr down to Stranraer that is obviously the major issue. I would like to ask about the Maybole bypass, which has been mentioned. I am not sure whether Helen Eadie or Sandra White asked the question, but the response was that a report on the Scottish transport appraisal guidance analysis that is currently under way is to be published later this year. You said that you were not involved in that.
No.
Has there been local involvement and input? Do you know who has been consulted locally about whether the project should proceed?
I do not know who has been consulted locally, but South Ayrshire Council has on its website quite extensive plans for the Maybole bypass.
As there are two major businesses in the area, I would have thought that you and many other business people would have been consulted, but it seems that that is not the case and that you have not been asked for your views.
No, there is not because we do not have a motorway in Ayrshire. Under an agreement that was made by the original Scottish Office dating back 30 years, motorways have blue and white signs for Radio Scotland and the local commercial radio stations, but the rules on broadcasting have changed considerably in 30 years. The problems now are, first, that we do not have a motorway from Glasgow to Stranraer and, secondly, that there are so many commercial radio operators that motorway signs would have to list about 20. In Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway it is slightly different, because there is only one commercial operator, which is West Sound.
Thank you for that explanation. You are dealing with a special case here, I think.
It is a very special case.
You and Mr Gordon have outlined the fact that the problem is particularly exacerbated by the ferry traffic, because the traffic flow is not even; of necessity, it comes in bursts. It seems to me that there ought to be some means of having an equivalent to the motorway signs in that area.
The rules are so old that they are lost in the mists of time. All sorts of political debates are going on in the background, but we have asked many times for road signs that give the radio station frequencies and we have been refused.
To whom have you made that request?
We asked civil servants at the Scottish Executive.
On what basis did they refuse?
They say that such signs would advertise the radio station. My response is that I would not have given three years of commitment and investment to road safety if it was just a commercial matter. I could go out and buy advertisements on the backs of buses, poster sites in the middle of town, liveried taxis and so on, but that is not my concern. My concern is about road safety information. Some 55 per cent of the population in the area tune in to the radio stations every week, but drivers who come into the area are completely unaware of them. They leave Alan Gordon's ferries at Stranraer, they do not have a clue about the A77 and they take their chances. The statistics show that nine times out of 10 it is local people who are killed by people who come into the area and are unaware of the road.
I think that we can progress the issue. I can see that there is commercial competition with BBC Radio Scotland in terms of general broadcasting, but the road traffic information that it gives has to cover the whole country. I think that the committee would like to look at that.
I apologise to Sheena Borthwick and Alan Gordon for missing the latter part of their presentation.
One of the reasons for the investment in the new port is that we will be able to take 25 minutes off the journey time, but it will also allow us to run an extra peak departure of the high speed service, so we expect traffic volumes to increase. The volume might grow by between 5 and 10 per cent. This is a changing world—we expect the business to grow. It is a quality service between two good destinations.
My other question is for Sheena Borthwick. Your petition calls for
It is a starting point. We have not invested any money in research on the matter. Alan Gordon and I examined the route and that is our starting point. We have no money to invest, but suffice it to say that we are committed to the proposal. We have the same goal.
Like everyone else in Ayrshire, you will be aware of the new traffic cameras on the A77 between Spittalhill and Ballantrae, which measure the time that vehicles take to travel a certain distance. Do you think that they will have an impact on speed reduction?
You are talking about the SPECS system.
Yes.
Enforcement is all very well, but the emphasis should be on engineering and education. Things do not bode well for that system. The public feel that they are continually penalised for driving on the route. I do not know whether the system will make a difference. As with all speed cameras, people slow down when necessary and then put their foot down again. We are talking about realities, and that is the reality of the way in which people drive on the roads. We would all like to live in a perfect world but we do not.
I should perhaps warn my colleagues, who will have come through the new cameras this morning, that they are not speed cameras as such; rather, they time journeys over a certain distance. My colleagues are all law abiding, but I point that out in case they are tempted to put their feet down on the way home. I do not know whether the system is switched on yet, but that is how it works.
We will be tuned in to West Sound anyway, so it won't be a problem.
Of course.
If anybody gets stuck behind a works lorry as I did this morning, they will be in no danger of getting caught by speed cameras.
I do not think that many people are aware that the Stranraer-Cairnryan port is the second-largest ferry port in the United Kingdom—at least, that is what I understand. There is already a fair bit of traffic on the A77 but, in his answer to John Scott, Alan Gordon did not give any indication of the likely increase in traffic when the new ferry port developments come on stream. I ask him to give us a better idea of that and particularly how it will affect Maybole, which is the bottleneck on the A77. Maybole has a narrow main street and huge, juggernaut lorries have to weave in and out of the cars parked there, which is damaging the fabric of the town. There has been a campaign for a bypass for about 50 years. I ask Alan Gordon to give a ferry operator and haulage perspective on the Maybole problem.
About 360,000 units of freight go through Loch Ryan a year, which is way above the amount that any other operator in the United Kingdom handles. The problem at Maybole is that there is parking in the streets and it is terrible for lorries to have to weave in and out of the parked cars through the town—it must be terrible for the residents as well. We have worked with the north channel partnership, which includes South Ayrshire Council, to help to put pressure on for a bypass, which we support 100 per cent.
Mike Watson asked who had been consulted. I understand that South Ayrshire Council has proposed a fairly detailed scheme, which the consultants whom Sandra White mentioned are considering. The Minister for Transport made a commitment to consider the proposals for a Maybole bypass, so it might be worth the committee's while asking him how proposals will be taken forward and when the consultants' report is likely to arrive.
Sheena Borthwick mentioned passing places. I ask her whether she proposed to the A77 safety group that there should be passing places.
No, not to the safety group.
I started by asking a question about prioritising what has to be done and where it needs to be done. The committee hears a lot of petitions that are not dissimilar to the one to which you are speaking—if they are not about the A9, they are about the A90 or the M74. Everyone has their special pleading, but the reality is that not everything that people ask for can be delivered when they require it, even though a report might say that it has to be. Have you had any indication that the Scottish Executive considers your proposal to be a priority?
We have had indications that the Executive will invest in four schemes in each direction on the A75 and the A77. When Stena Line invests in a port, that investment is for a lifetime—the port of Stranraer has been there for 100 years. Stena Line wants to invest heavily. We invest heavily by having our people in Stranraer—we are the biggest employer there—and we want to continue with that. We are playing our part in the investment; the question is how we can get a partnership over time. We do not expect everything to be in place within the next week but, if we had a commitment that a certain number of schemes would be invested in each year over a period of time, we could achieve what we want in partnership. For us, the priority is upgrading the roads closest to the port, because that is where the frustration starts.
You talked about partnerships. When considering transport infrastructure on other occasions, the committee has had discussions with the construction industry, which has made it clear that it is under severe pressure to build what is already in the programme of road building. Have you had discussions with the construction industry about how high a priority it would be for the industry to get involved in building what you require for the A77?
We see it as the Executive's role, rather than our role, to have such discussions. Our role is to build the port and to rebuild the links.
I understand that. I was just wondering whether you had had discussions about the practicalities of building what is required.
We had meetings with the minister and have said that, if any new sections of the roads are to be built, construction must be phased. If three new sections are built at once, frustration levels will rise much higher. We have said that we would like construction to take place in a phased fashion and that sections should be built one at a time. We would like to avoid building in July and August, which is the time of peak traffic flows.
How do members think we should progress the petition?
I have a couple of suggestions. Like Adam Ingram, I would like an indication of when the report on the proposed Maybole bypass will be ready and whom Atkins Highways and Transportation consulted when carrying out its Scottish transport appraisal guidance analysis of the project. I would also like to know whether the A77 safety group has concluded its report. As Sheena Borthwick said, no feedback has been received. The group was set up by the Executive and people need to know whether it has reached any conclusions, so that those can be considered. Are the parties involved talking and passing on information to one another? I have three questions for the Executive. First, has the report that it commissioned in June 2004 been concluded? Secondly, when will the report on the Maybole bypass be ready? Thirdly, who was consulted by the Executive working group on the bypass?
I would like to add to the reasonable suggestions that Sandra White has made. We should ask the Royal Automobile Club, the AA, the Road Haulage Association, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and—last but not least—the Scottish Executive for their observations.
The Road Haulage Association has signed the petition and given us its support. Its signature accounts for about 1,500 members in Scotland and Ireland.
I agree with Helen Eadie, who made a valid point about the trans-European networks agreement.
I reiterate what Mike Watson said. I have commented on West Sound signs. The idea is good, so we should not knock it back simply because the Executive says that erecting such signs is impossible as they would advertise the station. When we ask the Executive to respond to the petition, can we ask it to say what could be done to get round that?
There are several questions to put to the Scottish Executive. If we write to all the organisations that have been suggested, we will form a bigger picture of what must be done and we will have the specific questions answered. We will keep the petitioners updated on the responses that we receive and we will see how far we can progress the petition. We will keep in touch.
So do I, as the wedding is taking place in a marquee in a garden.
We wish you all the best for the future. Thank you for presenting your petition.
Thank you.
Singing Tuition (PE860)
Our next petition is PE860 from Marilyn de Blieck, on behalf of Ayrshire Voices, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to develop a coherent national policy on the teaching of singing and in particular to ensure adequate provision of vocal tuition for young people throughout Scotland. Marilyn de Blieck will make a brief statement to the committee in support of her petition. She is accompanied by Lauren Redmond. I welcome you to the meeting. You have a few minutes for your statement, after which we will discuss the subject.
I am not fond of microphones, but I will use one on this occasion. I am much more used to raising my voice and projecting, but I hope that the microphone is all right and that I can be heard.
Thank you. Did you wish to say something, Miss Redmond?
I have gone right through the Ayrshire Voices system; I started when I was six years old and finished just last year when I was 18. Not only have Marilyn and Raymond taught me how to sing but they have improved a lot of things in my life. I went to secondary school in South Ayrshire and was never encouraged in singing. I am now at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. When I told my teachers about my place, they asked me why I could not go and do a proper degree. I was never encouraged at school; the encouragement always came from Marilyn and Raymond at Ayrshire Voices. It is clear that a number of the 200 youngsters in Ayrshire Voices could end up doing what I am doing.
Thank you and welcome to the committee. I was interested in what you said. The information that has been provided to the committee says that Ayrshire Voices was founded to
Yes, it does. When I heard about the youth music initiative funding, I knew immediately that singing would have to form quite a large part of the initiative, although that was not stated at the outset, because otherwise the targets in primary schools could not be met. Singing is the activity that can involve the most children. The target is for all children to have a year of music tuition before primary 6, but if we attempted to offer all those children instrumental tuition we would fail miserably—no budget would cope with doing that and the tutors would not be able to cope, either. I do not think that the matter was considered at the time, but I knew that singing would have to be taught, for want of any other way of meeting the target. As a result, there has been greater input into the teaching of singing in primary schools.
In your submission, you talk about the financial situation that Ayrshire Voices faces. You say that the funding that you received from South Ayrshire Council was stopped and that you currently receive support from the common good fund, which by definition is temporary support. What will happen when the common good fund funding comes to an end?
Yes, I applied last year, in the most recent funding round, but I was turned down.
Were you given a reason?
I was told that my operation was unsustainable.
However, Ayrshire Voices has been in existence for—
We have been in existence for more than 20 years. In the light of the withdrawal of local authority education funding, I think that the Scottish Arts Council thought that we would not survive. However, we have survived.
You proved the SAC wrong.
I am not at all sure how much longer we will survive.
This may not be a fair question to ask you, but when the assistance from South Ayrshire Council's common good fund ends, do you intend to go back to the council to try to have mainstream funding restored? You make the point that project funding is not hard to come by, but core funding is.
It is virtually impossible to get core funding in our field. The only option is if the local authority runs an education system for singers, but South Ayrshire Council does not. The answer to your question is that I do not know. In 20 years, I have never known where my next bit of funding was coming from, but the situation has sometimes been better than it is at present—at present, it is terrible. In the past year, I had to lose huge swathes of my operation to keep the core activity. Ayr common good funding allows me to operate only in Ayr, but it has been part of our funding package for several years. I hope that the common good funding will continue in the 2006-07 financial year, but I have no hope whatever of receiving education funding. In 2007, there will be a council election and no council will commit for the period beyond the next election. I expect to stagger on for a couple of years, after which I might have to bring my operation to a complete close, which will leave young singers in South Ayrshire in a dire situation.
I have a closing comment. The point of the SAC funding was that where local authorities choose not to put resources into music tuition—for singing or other forms of musical activity—organisations should still be able to get funding. I would like the committee to ask the SAC why it found Ayrshire Voices to be, as you said, unsustainable, when its record shows otherwise.
Good morning, ladies. I am sorry that we will not hear you sing today, because I know what wonderful voices you have.
Lauren Redmond is the one for that at the moment.
Mike Watson has asked all the questions that need to be asked, but can you give us an idea of the number of children and young people with whom you deal annually? Have you done a rule-of-thumb calculation of the number of children and young people whom you have helped bring to the enormously high standards that I have witnessed in the 20 years in which your organisation has existed?
That is a good question. I suppose that we have compared one year with another at various times, but I have never really sat down and reckoned up the total.
At the moment, then, how many are in your programme?
We have 200 children in regular tuition. In my view, we should have a minimum of 500 in an area like this. We are obliged to charge a fee—albeit small—for our services, but we have a scholarship fund that deals with any case in which there is a genuine inability to pay that small fee.
People cannot be expected to work for nothing.
Well—almost.
I know that you do, and that determination and bad temper keep you going. [Laughter.]
I am not sure that anyone has done a specific study on that, but my experience and that of my colleagues tell me that there is a benefit. We have given many performances over the years. As you know, we give two major performances with all the children in Ayr town hall every year; we also do a lot of smaller gigs for community organisations. We used to be able to do a children's opera once a year, for which we commissioned three new works.
Who trains the trainers—people such as yourselves?
At the moment, nobody.
Can you describe the network of people like you in Scotland?
I do not think that there is a network. There is fragmentation. The picture is like a jigsaw puzzle that has a lot of holes in it where pieces have not yet been added.
What kind of singing do you teach? Is it operatic, folk singing or all sorts of singing?
We train our singers on the classical basis. There is no other way to train young singers that is accepted across the profession. We can train them later as folk singers, jazz singers or music theatre singers, where there is quite a lot of specific postgraduate training. It is noticeable that the commercial professional companies that cast for the big musicals—that is where a lot of work for singers lies—want classically trained singers, because they are the only ones whose voices will stand up to the strain of eight or 10 performances a week, even with microphone assistance. I regard it as the safest way to train singers. My singers have gone out into the world and proved that they can turn their hand to anything.
I started off when I was six or seven years old, singing lighter classical stuff. Now that I am in my first year in London, I have started on folk songs, jazz and musical theatre. With what Marilyn and Raymond gave me, I feel that I can branch out in different directions.
In Glasgow and elsewhere, numerous groups have, unfortunately, had their funding withdrawn as a result of duplication of services. Do other groups in your area provide the same services that you provide, and are they being funded by the council?
I would say an emphatic no. North Ayrshire has a good system and real efforts have been made to ensure that it is delivered by the local authority and its staff. That works well, in that the area has big choirs that give good performances, but I am not convinced that the local authority only model is necessarily the best way forward as far as this issue is concerned.
We are joined this morning by Phil Gallie. Phil, do you have a question?
Ayrshire Voices has not only built confidence in children by getting them to perform on stage, but has provided fuel for excellent amateur organisations such as Ayr Amateur Opera Company, the Ayrshire Philharmonic Opera Society and Ayr Fort Players by giving its members their first taste of this activity. Does that form part of the argument for expanding such activities on the national scene, particularly since Scotland has a range of such amateur organisations?
Yes. I believe that we should have co-operation in the extracurricular sector—or the informal sector, as it is now called. For example, I would like to know where the singers of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chorus, the Edinburgh Festival Chorus or any other national choral organisations come from. Obviously, it all starts with young people. If they want to continue, they have to go into an adult organisation of some kind.
The Edinburgh festival was just mentioned. Do you agree that people's interest in performing at such a level can be created only when they are children?
Yes. We also need audiences for Scottish performers, not just for the rich and famous people from abroad. Only yesterday, I was saying to Lauren that the really starry performers in any field who have natural, great-quality voices and a natural grasp of good singing technique—which is something you probably need in order to survive—will always rise to the top. They will never be held down. I am much more concerned about the people who are one or two levels below that and who could be very fine performers but will not make it without support. I am also concerned about the vast mass of kids who are losing a creative outlet. I am afraid that, without such an outlet and with all that energy to burn, they will find destructive outlets instead.
Do members have suggestions on what we should do with the petition?
If I may repeat my earlier point, I would say that we should write to the Scottish Arts Council. We should ask how it spends the Executive's money and to what extent it includes non-public sector organisations such as Ayrshire Voices, given that they have a role to play in addition to the major role that local authorities have. Although it is not the committee's function to ask the SAC why it did not fund a particular organisation, we can ask how many local groups have received funding—
I am sorry to interrupt, but not many local groups down here receive funding. I think that ours is almost the only one.
We could ask for that information on a Scotland-wide basis to find out the extent to which funding is given to groups such as yours, which have a major contribution to make.
I agree with Mike Watson's suggestion. I know that the committee has limited powers, but can we ask the SAC why the request from Ayrshire Voices was turned down, given that it is the only such group in Ayrshire?
We cannot really ask questions about a specific group. As Mike Watson said, it is not our responsibility to investigate why an individual group was not supported. We can find out in general terms what the criteria or funding levels are, but we cannot get involved in the decision on a specific organisation.
I take that point on board, but perhaps one of the local MSPs will take up the issue with the Scottish Arts Council.
Our MSP, Cathy Jamieson, wrote to the Scottish Arts Council, but she received practically the same reply as I did. Given that the criteria have changed and singing is no longer the priority this year that it was last year, I felt that it was not worth putting in the considerable effort that is required to make an application.
My suggestion is that we write to the local authorities that cover the area in which Ayrshire Voices operates. The picture that we have been given this morning is in stark contrast to the experience in my local authority areas. The two local authorities in my constituency have such an outstanding record of support in music tuition that the youth music initiative was launched in a primary school in my constituency. In fact, the two authorities support music and singing so well that they need to hire Glasgow Royal Concert Hall to stage their annual concert, which is very popular. The annual concert involves many young people and it has all types of music, including orchestral and jazz. There are also two huge choirs for North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire.
Yes, they made music a big priority and the results are phenomenal.
An incredible number of young people go on to the royal academies, which is terrific. A school in my area outperforms expectations because of the head teacher's focus on music; in fact, she received an honour as a result of that work in the recent honours list. What I have heard this morning is in complete contrast to the experience in my area, so I would like to know why the Ayrshire authorities do not support music in the way that other authorities do.
The problem is not universal. As I said, North Ayrshire Council has a very good system and East Ayrshire Council is working hard at provision, but there is no question that things are more difficult here.
I would like to get a clearer picture of why that is the case. If support can be given in some local authority areas, I would like some clarification of why it is not given across the board.
I echo the convener's comments. In my constituency, Fife Council gives some powerful support to music. Indeed, last year or the year before, I attended a major concert at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh that was full of pupils from schools throughout the wider Edinburgh area. I was absolutely impressed with that and thought that it was just fantastic. The concert included music of all sorts in the widest sense.
That would be nice.
Can we find out about provision by local authority area? Would the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities be able to provide us with that information? We will leave that in your capable hands.
COSLA will not give you information on the informal sector, which is important. There must be a way of finding out what is happening outside the school sector.
We will write to organisations such as the Scottish Arts Council to give us a picture of the situation. Once we receive responses, we will keep you posted on developments as we try to progress the petition on your behalf.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for coming this morning.
National Burns Heritage Trail (PE861)<br />Robert Burns<br />(Culture and Tourism Policies) (PE824)
Our next petition is PE861, which Bob Leitch has lodged on behalf of the board of directors of Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to take immediate action to create a task force to integrate and develop all Burns assets, properties and locations throughout Scotland, which will result in the establishment of a national Burns heritage trail that will be ready for the year of homecoming in 2009 and which will also be available for promotion internationally by the end of 2006. Before the petition was lodged, it was hosted on the Parliament's e-petition website, where it attracted a total of 171 signatures.
I thank the committee for giving us the opportunity to speak to our petition. Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry lodged what was just the second petition to the Public Petitions Committee in 1999, on completion of the M77 between Malletsheugh and Fenwick. I am delighted that, as a result of that petition, that road recently opened. We hope that our current petition will have similar success and that, in time, the Burns trail will be up and running.
If there is a positive will to pursue a national Burns heritage trail, there should also be positive discrimination in the Scottish education system to ensure that the indigenous population gains an appreciation of Burns's works, which is sadly lacking at this time. A national trail will also provide an appreciation of Burns's works throughout the calendar year, rather than there being just one dominant day at the end of January with his works forgotten for the other 364 days. A national trail would support both those suggestions; they should be taken into account if such a trail is given the opportunity to exist.
As Mr Leitch pointed out, the committee has another petition on the same subject on its agenda. If we take that petition and the responses to it at the same time as PE861, we could discuss all the points that have been raised by the petitioners this morning and by the previous petitioners. Do members agree to that?
PE824 by Peter Watson on behalf of Alloway and Doonfoot community council called on the Scottish Parliament to review the policy and commitment of the Scottish Executive to placing Robert Burns and his legacy at the heart of its culture and tourism policies, and to urge the Scottish Executive to assume responsibility for bringing together all interested parties to ensure that the flagship assets of our Burns heritage are properly restored and developed in good time for the major events that are planned for the 2009 year of homecoming, which marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of the national bard.
I have a question for Bob Leitch. Has Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry done any work on the possible benefits and potential increased number of tourists that an integrated trail across the south-west of Scotland would bring? Have you any back-of-an-envelope calculations on that?
They would be back-of-an-envelope calculations at this stage. As time has gone on, we have become more aware of the opportunity to create a bigger product. The facts show that more than 70 per cent of people who visit Scotland go to Edinburgh; many do not get much further than that. We say that that should not be the case. Although we accept that we will not be the only holiday destination, we have to work to link up with other major holiday destinations. After all, Burns spent time in Edinburgh, so if we get the product all joined up, we could create a globally known product that will attract people to Ayrshire as part of their Scottish holiday.
We appreciate the letter from Patricia Ferguson, which was given to the committee this morning. She is enthusiastic about such matters. As a representative of Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry, will you explain local feeling? Is there frustration that matters are not progressing? Is there antipathy towards the Burns concept and the feeling that, as a local man, your finger should be well on the pulse?
We have just restructured VisitScotland and now have a new VisitScotland Prestwick, a partnership that we are pleased to be part of. Mr Riddle, the chief executive of VisitScotland has said that tourism is everyone's business; that is very much the case. As a representative organisation that looks after the interests of business in Ayrshire, we are becoming increasingly aware of the need to spread that message and encourage other people to become involved in the product.
In the past, one of the difficulties of establishing the Burns tourist trail in Ayrshire has been access. Do you acknowledge that access to Ayrshire is now better than it was? Do you wish to discuss that, bearing in mind the M77, the airport and improved rail services?
Absolutely. We are lucky in Ayrshire to have a good transport infrastructure, which is improving all the time. Of course, there will always be room for improvement, and we support Sheena Borthwick and the need in South Ayrshire to improve the condition of the A77. If we look back over the past five, six, seven or eight years, we see that transport infrastructure has improved considerably—something that must be to Ayrshire's advantage. The airport now serves 17 destinations with flights running daily to and from Ayrshire to Europe, something that we used not to have. We now have the new road and those who travel regularly to Edinburgh have slight smiles on their faces for a change because the journey is 10 to 15 minutes quicker than it ever could have been in the past. That is great and it represents another opportunity to broaden the base of tourism in Ayrshire. The new bypass at Ardrossan and Saltcoats is a great improvement in North Ayrshire and we have a reasonable railway infrastructure. I know that we want it to be improved and believe that it should be better, but we have a frequent train service from the city centre in Glasgow to all parts of Ayrshire. Yes, we are lucky and things are getting better. We will always want more, but that is human nature.
That is absolutely right. Although Burns is very important to the economy and the people of Ayrshire, it is even more important that people throughout the world can access sites to find out about Robert Burns. It is a national disgrace that we do not have anything for Robert Burns. As someone who has been a member of the Wallace Society for more years than I care to remember, I find it difficult to obtain funding for joined-up thinking. As you mentioned, we are lax in this country in respect of putting our heroes on pedestals. We should know about such people.
An audit is on-going at the moment. I do not know the specifics of the audit, but I understand that Scottish Enterprise Ayrshire, the local authority and other parties that are involved in the Burns product have been looking at the current situation. That progress is good and commendable, and it is the first sign that we have seen that people are beginning to work together as far as the Burns product is concerned. That is an important step. We would like to be more involved in the process but, so far, we have not been invited to do so. It is in the interests of business in general across Ayrshire for that to happen—indeed, it would be useful if all of us were to be involved.
You have practically answered my second question, which was to ask you about the organisations that are involved in the project, when the project was set up and when it expects to have results. You have just told us that the Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry has not been involved so far. Why is that? When was the project set up and when is it expected to finish?
My understanding is that the project was set up only in the past few months. Everything that has happened at the Burns national heritage park has jolted people into being more aware of the need to do something more concrete.
The letter that we received today from Patricia Ferguson shows her enthusiasm. She makes it clear that the project is
First, I endorse Bob Leitch's statement on the weather in Ayrshire. However, as I am from the sub-tropical paradise of Ardrossan, I am finding it a bit chilly in Ayr today. You mentioned that Burns moved around the country a bit. That may because it is harder to hit a moving target; given his history, it was probably a good idea.
That is all to do with marketing and a commitment to, belief in and understanding of the product. To return to something that John Kerr said, people will not understand the product and Burns will be alien to them if, as school children, they do not get to know about Burns as they are growing up. Alongside a marketing project that creates the trail, puts it together and brings together all the loose ends, an elementary educational job must also be done to inform children and young people about Burns and what an important asset he is to our country and to our economy. If we approach the project properly, the sky is the limit: the potential is massive. If we think of Stratford we think of Shakespeare. That is the kind of product that Burns should become for Scotland.
The petitioners will be aware of the National Trust for Scotland's involvement in Alloway. Do you endorse its view of Alloway as a hub, both as the starting point for a national tourism tour or a tourism trail throughout the south-west of Scotland, and for co-ordination of the national collections? Until now, we have not even had that kind of facility available to us. Have you had any discussions with the NTS? Are you aware of on-going developments?
One difficulty in respect of whether Alloway could be a hub is that that might severely depress Burns enthusiasts in Dumfries. Alloway is certainly a starting point because it is his birthplace. A difficulty that we have with Burns is that he moved around and the properties in the areas that he moved to may be under local authority control, NTS control or private ownership. The diversity of ownership of the properties creates difficulties in ensuring that there is a cohesive strategy.
Has Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently had discussions with the players at Alloway?
No, we have had no such discussions. We have been involved around the fringes of everything that is going on and we are concerned about everything that is going on. As I said to Sandra White in response to a previous question, we would be happy to be much more involved than we have been until now.
My second point is about the 2009 year of homecoming. As you are probably aware, Professor John Lennon has been commissioned by the Scottish Executive to consider how we can take full advantage of 2009. He has looked at similar events that have happened elsewhere in Europe. For example, in Ireland there is the James Joyce experience in Dublin, in Denmark there is Hans Christian Andersen and in Austria there is Mozart. There is a lot of international experience. From a business perspective, you want to ensure that you take maximum advantage and that opportunities are fully realised. What are your impressions of that effort? Have you been involved in it or consulted?
The year of homecoming is obviously a unique opportunity in the lifetime of everybody here. If it can be used as a bounce point to increase appreciation of Burns beforehand and to encourage it thereafter, that can only be a good thing. I would bow to the good Professor Lennon in whatever he comes up with in his report and deliberations. From a business and continuing heritage point of view, the year of homecoming will be an opportune time for appreciation of Burns in general. We support whole-heartedly anything that comes about from the homecoming report and that pushes matters forward once 2009 has passed.
That is a very important point for us. The petition is not only about the year of homecoming. The year of homecoming can be the beginning of something very big, but we need to develop a sustainable product that will continue for much longer. That is our objective in lodging the petition.
Will the gentlemen use their influence to persuade the authorities at Prestwick airport to change the airport's logo to a more Burns-oriented one?
We are tenants of the airport and had nothing whatever to do with the logo. However, whether people like it or not, the plus side is that it has generated enormous press publicity, which Prestwick would not have received after its revamp if it had not chosen that slogan. There are pluses and minuses to everything. The slogan is "Pure dead brilliant", in case the convener is wondering.
I was just going to say that Prestwick airport is pure dead brilliant.
John Kerr mentioned the teaching of Burns in schools. The Robert Burns World Federation does much good work in schools. What initiatives should there be in schools in that regard?
The teaching of Burns is not currently part of secondary education. If a student is lucky enough to develop an appreciation of Robert Burns as a result of his or her English studies, that is normally because their English teacher or head of department appreciates Burns and wants to promote him as a poet who is worthy of review. The primary education programme in the three local authorities in Ayrshire is very good. I think that almost every Ayrshire primary school pupil has the opportunity to learn about Burns and is encouraged to participate in Burns competitions. However, I am aware of no formal structure for Burns study in the Scottish secondary education system. As I said, there should be positive discrimination on the matter. Irrespective of the petition's call for a national heritage trail, it is appalling that our education system pays no more than modest lip service to the work of our national bard. There is certainly much adult appreciation of Burns's work, but unfortunately some of that happens in the haze of Burns night once per annum, when the work is appreciated not for its poetic merit but in relation to something more liquid.
We will want to pursue the matter with the Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. Like Helen Eadie, I am pleased by the minister's commitment to the issue. However, it is important that we ascertain her views on Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry's call for the establishment of a task force. Are members happy to write to the minister for clarification on the matter?
I, too, welcome the minister's response, which we received this morning. However, we must press on. It is 2005 and the year of homecoming is not far away. As Bob Leitch says, we are not talking about an event that happens once a year; we are talking about the sustainability of Burns and the absolute necessity of grasping with both hands the opportunity that marketing Burns offers Ayrshire and south-west Scotland. It would be foolhardy not to grasp that opportunity. We should ask the minister when plans will be forthcoming. We have all shared in the talking and the wringing of hands and we need to press on. We welcome the involvement of the National Trust for Scotland and I have every confidence that Patricia Ferguson will deliver on her welcome commitments. However, we would like the plans to progress.
I agree. We have the minister's letter, but it is important that we find out what is going to happen. Bob Leitch said that an audit process has started, but Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce and Industry is not involved in it. We should ask the council who is involved and what is happening with the audit of heritage trail sites. There needs to be joined-up thinking.
We will start by seeking a response from the minister and then consider what is happening at local level. This is a policy that must be pulled together from the centre. Members are not always happy with that approach, but the policy is not specific to one local authority because it covers the whole of Scotland and all of us will benefit from it if it is implemented properly. At some point, we could find out how everything ties in.
The point should be made—it is better that I make it than that Mike Watson and Helen Eadie do so—that we would welcome hearing from the minister, given that thus far we are pleased with what she has done. That contrasts with what has happened in the past, when we have called ministers before us because we are less than happy about what they have done. The convener talked about the need to drive the project from the centre. That is important, because the project requires partnership working and leadership. The little that I have seen suggests that the minister is best placed to provide that. Once the project has been established sustainably, there may be an opportunity for the minister to divest herself of the responsibility that she has taken on. In the meantime, the matter is in her hands.
Are members happy to write to the minister, extending to her an invitation to meet us? If she is unable to do so, we will seek a detailed response to PE861 and will continue to have a dialogue with her, either in writing or in person.
I thank the petitioners for bringing the matter to our attention.
I will keep members posted on progress.
Telecommunications Masts (Council Land) (PE839)
The last new petition is PE839, by Councillor Peter John Convery, which calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to develop clear and concise guidance for local authorities on the use of moratorium to exclude telecommunication masts from being situated on council land.
Councillor Kerr and I are grateful for the opportunity to speak in support of the petition today. After hearing what Ayrshire Voices said, we would dearly love to persuade the committee that we are from North Ayrshire Council, but I do not think that members would believe us. What happened with Ayrshire Voices was not one of our best moments and I am not particularly happy about it.
I moved a motion at the appropriate committee calling for a review of South Ayrshire Council's moratorium. At the time, the relevant director's reason for not moving from the existing position was that he required guidance from the Scottish Executive on the harm that telecommunications masts might cause to the population. The council rejected the motion. That is the background to the situation.
If I understand correctly, you are saying that there is a conflict of interest. On the one hand, the council is not prepared to grant planning permission for masts on its own land but, on the other, it is prepared to grant planning permission for masts next to housing, even though there is a query about the health hazards. Your point is that the conflict of interest exists throughout Scotland, not just in South Ayrshire.
We are not talking about removing the moratorium; we suggest that it should be much more specifically related to the two initial key drivers for the moratorium, which related to schools and hospitals. From looking at different websites, I am sure that the situation in which we have ended up is not unique.
You have explored all the possibilities that you as local councillors can do. You have spoken to the council director, who still seeks further guidance, although he is an expert on all the planning guidelines and guidance.
I am sure that members of the Parliament are aware of this, but I will reiterate it for the public's benefit. Members of the council planning committee are not allowed to take into account health issues or use them to reject planning applications for telecoms masts. If we did so, the applicants would appeal and the reporter would certainly agree to the masts.
I have much sympathy for the councillors' motivation behind lodging the petition. They tried to do the right thing and found that it came back to bite them, as they said. I wonder about the decision by the council director that the council appeared to endorse. I understand that the council decided to impose a moratorium. That is right, because the councillors—not a director or any other official—are supposed to run the council. If the council took the decision, what prevents it from lifting the moratorium?
I am sorry if I misled the committee. The director did not take the decision; he gave us advice and councillors chose to act on it.
Ultimately, the councillors—the elected representatives—take the decisions, so what prevents the council from reversing its decision?
I moved a motion to review the situation, but the relevant committee did not go along with it.
That was a decision of elected representatives.
Absolutely.
The accompanying documents say that a director took the decision, but it was elected councillors who took it. I wanted to clarify that.
I have great sympathy with that view. We were elected to make decisions rather than to prevaricate over what a director says. The reality was in front of us. We brought the moratorium to life and we have maintained it for the past five years. As the roll-out of third-generation technology starts in earnest, the hope is that 80 per cent of it will be rolled out by 2007, so that will be the reality.
Welcome, gentlemen. There are a couple of things that puzzle me. Like almost every other member of the Parliament, I have had cases like this in my constituency. They always create interest and concern.
I am not sure of my legal ground, but I think that any mast operator needs the consent of the owner of the property before it can install a mast, except if the site is on a public road or footpath. Council property is private property, like any other. That is my understanding of the situation.
So, an application to site anything on South Ayrshire Council property would not get past stage 1 and could not be submitted. Thank you for that clarification.
From memory—and my memory is not particularly good—I believe that it would be on the perceived harm that these masts may or may not cause to people who live nearby.
So, the official position of South Ayrshire Council is that it believes that telecommunications masts are at least potentially harmful to the local population. Yet—no doubt, as in any other part of the country—there is a wide network of masts to enable us all to use our mobile phones.
Sorry. I think that the mast would have been that size anyway simply because of the topography of the ground. If the masts are closer together, smaller ones can be used, but the mast at that location had to be 14m high regardless of whether it was going to be on the golf course or in the middle of a pavement.
Am I right in thinking that 14m is not a height that has been chosen at random? Do additional qualifications not come into play for masts that are 15m or over?
I have considerable sympathy with your petition. I am one of the MSPs who have had a substantial case load on the matter and, as a consequence, I met the Scottish Advisory Committee on Telecommunications and all the mobile phone operators in my area. They agreed to hold an annual meeting to show local councillors the roll-out map for the area. As Mike Watson rightly points out, we all want improved telecommunications. It is certainly part of the Westminster Government's policy that we major in that area. Have you had a meeting with the mobile phone operators in your area to see the roll-out map and discuss what will happen during the coming year? Such meetings give a good basis for negotiation on where masts can be placed and what sort of masts are used.
I am on the planning committee so I do not see the information until a planning application comes in. Another committee would deal with it first. You are correct in that we are entitled to ask operators whether a roll-out is planned. Of course, although they might identify the sites that are best in terms of the interconnection between masts, they might have to discount them at a later date. That was certainly the case with the two most recent cases, which were very contentious.
The Scottish Executive is keen for operators to collaborate with local authorities and councillors by holding an annual or biannual meeting to examine the overall plan so that contentious issues can be resolved when they arise. I was a member of the Transport and the Environment Committee when it carried out a major inquiry on the issue. To return to what Campbell Martin said, the local government officer who gave you the advice needs to be pointed to all the deliberations that have taken place on the matter in the Scottish Parliament and to the various documents that are available. They support the view that it is up to local councillors to make the best choice for their local area. I support that point of view.
Most of the questions that I wanted to ask have been answered. This morning, I had a long conversation with Helen Eadie, who was on the Transport and the Environment Committee, to find out what was what. You say that you took advice from your executive at the council, and ultimately the matter is the council's responsibility. I do not think that the Public Petitions Committee can do anything at this stage.
I do not disagree. If I were sitting in your seat, I would think, "What a bunch of tubes!" We created the situation and now we are wringing our hands and saying, "Oh my God." Deadly serious things are happening that affect people's lives. Alistair Kerr's motion was not even about changing the process; it was simply asking for a review after five years. Everyone said, "Oh no—it's too dangerous. It's too scary, so let's just leave it. There's nothing we can do about those people who have already had their lives blighted." We are trying to find a way forward. Even if the committee chooses just to note what we have said, that is a big contribution for the people out there who are liable to have their lives blighted again because we did not revisit the issue. The exercise has not been negative for us, because we have to stand up for the people whom we represent. We have the power to change the use of the moratorium. If we choose not to, some of us will get our comeuppance. We should be able to do that and I am pretty cheesed off that we do not seem to be able to. It is like saying, "I'm the baby. I've dropped my toy out the pram. Can you come along and pick it up?"
I apologise for not being here at the beginning. Although I sympathise with what Helen Eadie and Campbell Martin have said about councillors responsibility, it seems to me that the petition hangs on confusions that arise in NPPG 19. It is brave councillors indeed who, on occasion, go against the advice of the highly paid senior executives. In this instance, NPPG 19 has a lot of characteristics that could cause confusion and it does not allow council officials to judge issues in the way that they could if there was a level playing field. Is that the point of the petition?
Yes, I believe it is. I sympathise with where you are coming from. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the councillor. However, the advice from the director was given in good faith on advice from his professionals, who were not being belligerent. The issue will not go away, because the same advice will come back if we take the matter to full council. We will be told to keep the status quo until further clarification is given. I think that we are on circular 5 at the moment. I am not saying that we do not have experts to deal with the stuff, but it is a mire in which we can really get bogged down. I am just a squaddie.
If the committee were to decide to ask the Scottish Executive to revisit NPPG 19 with a view to clarifying some of the points that you have identified, would you feel some satisfaction?
Yes. We get hung up on the precautionary approach on health issues, but we should remember that section 40 of NPPG 19 talks strongly about detriment to the visual amenities, so siting is extremely important. There are the health issues, on which the jury is still out, and the visual impact on the locality, and those two things together can blight someone's life terribly. I think that there is still an issue there for the Parliament, although whether it should be dealt with through the Public Petitions Committee I do not know.
I want recommendations on how to deal with this, because I think we know what the issue is.
Before we come to a recommendation, I want to say something about the odd situation that we have arrived at. All over the country, chief executives or officers of councils appear to be giving guidance and advice in good faith, but that can lead to different conclusions. If one council has a moratorium and another does not, that would suggest that the advice is far from clear.
I agree with part of what John Scott says, but not with another part. I agree that the perception of ill health and the threat to health is a serious issue, and public health consultants say that politicians need to have regard to that aspect of community concern.
But why are they turning it down?
Because they have taken a decision that they do not want to put themselves in any position of risk. That is a choice, and this comes back to the point that Campbell Martin made. It is made abundantly clear in the papers before us, and we have notification here in black and white, that
I will try to draw the discussion to a conclusion now, because we have given the petition quite a good airing. Everyone in the room understands that this is ultimately a planning matter, that the decision must be made at local level and that we are not sitting in judgment on any previous or future decisions. However, this is not the first time that we have had petitioners coming to seek clarification on specific points. In fact, without pre-empting our next debate, I think that that is exactly what happened in respect of a planning decision elsewhere, and in that case we took up the issue to seek clarification on certain points. We would not be stepping beyond the bounds of what we have done before if we were to do what Helen Eadie and Phil Gallie have suggested and to ask for some clarity on a specific point in the hope that that will allow those who will ultimately make the decision to do so having tested the Executive on its position. If we can agree on that, we could take the petition forward by seeking that clarity. When we get a response, the councillors will know what the Executive's position is in respect of those points when they make the ultimate decision.
Excellent.
Do members agree that we should take up that point?
Thank you.