Official Report 387KB pdf
Good morning. I welcome everyone to the third meeting in 2005 of the Waverley Railway (Scotland) Bill Committee, which is our 11th meeting overall. I introduce my colleagues on the committee: Gordon Jackson, Ted Brocklebank, Margaret Smith MSP and Christine May MSP. I am Tricia Marwick, the convener of the committee. I am sorry—Gordon and Ted are MSPs as well, of course.
I thought that I would take the opportunity of making a short opening statement to allow members of the committee to understand what SESTRAN is and where it came from.
Thank you very much.
Good morning, gentlemen. Councillor Imrie referred to bus services always being there and that is where I would like to start. Will the opening of the railway impact on the economic viability of Borders to Edinburgh bus services and, if so, how might that impact be mitigated?
We have already had a number of meetings with Lothian Buses and FirstBus and we know that they are strongly supportive of the opening of the rail line. They regard it as being beneficial in the sense that it might allow them to introduce other services. For example, when the stations are opened on the line, people who do not have direct access to them will need a bus service if they do not have a car. Such services might also entice car owners to leave their car at home, since they will be able to jump on the bus to get to the railway station. Because shuttle services will need to reach out to people to bring them to the nearest railway station, the bus companies are supportive of the proposal.
Has consideration been given to the effect that the line will have on bus services as a whole, including those that go to outlying villages and help to service the strategic routes? If more emphasis is placed on strategic routes, what impact might that have on those social lifeline services? Has any work been done to consider what it will cost the local authorities to support those lifeline services?
I will answer in general terms, as I have not been directly involved in either the modelling or the assessment of the line's impact on local bus services.
Will Mr Mair also comment on that question, especially on the more pressured services that are marginal at the moment?
First, we are pleased to endorse the stated commitments of the Scottish Executive and Scottish local authorities in wishing to develop Scotland's railways, particularly where public transport needs to provide the best option to encourage modal shift away from the car. In viewing the whole project, we urge members to bear in mind the important point that the bus delivers not just a connection between Edinburgh and the Borders but many other connections in-between. That issue needs to be taken on board as part of the whole project. We are uniquely placed to assist, because we are both the franchise holder for the ScotRail contract and a major bus operator in the Borders area.
Experience tells me that less well patronised routes will face considerable pressure, but nobody has said—perhaps people are being careful not to specify—what the potential costs might be. Have those costs been assessed and have they been factored into the current proposals?
I do not have the exact costs, but I know that both Scottish Borders Council and Midlothian Council have considered the project's possible impact on bus services, especially on routes that are subsidised. For example, Scottish Borders Council subsidises about 60 per cent of routes within the council's area for reasons of social inclusion. Moreover, I know from the Midlothian perspective that in the smaller villages there is a dial-a-cab service.
Thank you. I will pursue the matter with the promoter, but you would accept that, although what you say could be the case, it could equally not be the case.
I apologise for using an example from Fife, but we are currently about to let a tender for a demand-response or ring-and-ride service that will take people from places such as Dalgety Bay, Dunfermline and the surrounding areas to the railway stations. That will be done through open competition, which will allow the operators that currently make such provision to bid to provide the service. I am talking about a different type of service, but it will perhaps connect local communities with stations in a more cost-effective way than commercial services can. The situation will be different in different areas. There is currently an option of a ring-and-ride operation, which might involve taxis if the service is for one or two people, minibuses if it is for a number of people or larger buses if it can operate on a commercial basis.
Thank you. I will leave it to my colleagues to ask other questions on that. Could the current railway proposals—for example, for the location of stations—be improved to integrate with other modes of transport? If so, how could that be done?
The figures that have been made available to me indicate that more than half the people who will use the new route will either travel by bike or walk to the railway stations. That is an admirably high percentage and it is to be encouraged. The fact that the percentage is so high appears to indicate that the stations are located in logical places so that people can travel to them sustainably.
I will begin with a couple of questions to Mr Mair from FirstGroup. Mr Mair, you have outlined to some extent how you have been involved in the development of the Waverley railway proposals, but in your written evidence you call for the promoter to ensure careful planning of rail-bus integration. You state that the impact of the railway on bus services should be investigated and that current levels of public transport provision for people who will not directly benefit from the railway should be guaranteed. Do you believe that the issue has been thoroughly addressed?
In such cases, there is always a need for a great deal more work. If the project goes ahead, the first users of the rail line will most likely be current bus users. The issue must be addressed and considered. Integration is vital as it is key to getting the rail service to work as well as possible—buses have a role to play. We must ensure that we keep the links, which are so important. More work must be done.
Are rail service feeder buses commercially viable in an area such as the Scottish Borders, or do you believe that such services will require revenue subsidy?
Both scenarios are likely to arise. In some areas, such a service could be commercial, but in areas where communities are more widely spread and the population is smaller it is difficult to see how the service could be commercially operated. More detailed work is required.
Have you had a chance to do any of that work or assess what level of subsidy might be required?
Not at this stage, but we are uniquely placed to work with the different partners in the proposal in examining the issues and coming up with imaginative plans that will help the project to succeed.
Have you done any work on the impact that the railway could have on local bus services between Midlothian and Edinburgh?
I am not aware that we have. If we have, I will arrange to provide that to the committee.
In the evidence from the promoter, it is suggested that around 50 per cent of bus trips along the rail corridor would divert to rail, amounting to around 900,000 passenger trips a year. Is that a reasonable number or do you contest such figures?
We would need to do a bit more work before I could contest them, but it is inevitable that an initial patronage switch from bus to rail would happen and happen very quickly.
I presume that a shift of 900,000 passenger trips a year would have quite an impact on your bus business, so I am a bit surprised that you have not already done modelling work on that. Are you saying to us that you have not looked at the figures?
If the work has been done, I am prepared to provide the committee with the information outwith an open discussion.
Is that because you believe that the information is commercially sensitive and you want it to be given to us in a particular way?
Yes.
Right. What effect might the roll-out of the national concessionary bus fares scheme have on the railway's economic viability? We considered that issue last week.
My understanding is that the concessionary travel scheme that is planned to be introduced next April will exclude rail. I suppose that therefore there is a question mark over whether, if the not-hoped-for situation arises that the bus service between the Borders and Edinburgh is not sustainable, concessionaires could do that journey.
That would have an impact on you one way or another, because you are in the happy situation of being the bus operator and the rail operator. It is a no-lose situation for you, is it not?
It is sometimes difficult to wear two hats. The positive aspect of the situation is that we are uniquely placed to consider such issues and come up with imaginative solutions to the problems.
I do not want to tie you down too much on that comment at this early stage, but I presume that, given that position, you would be able to consider the integration of concessionary schemes on bus and rail services to try to ensure that the impact on the rail scheme was not too detrimental.
If we were to do any kind of work in that regard, we would need to involve the various local authorities and the Scottish Executive. It is my understanding that the national transport agency will operate the concessionary travel scheme. The bus operators, First ScotRail, the local authorities and the national transport agency should be able to come up with something between us.
Mr Mair has indicated that he has information that he is prepared to provide confidentially to the committee. If Councillor Imrie and Dr McLellan have had sight of that information prior to this meeting, do they also have information that they might make available to the committee in response? In the interest of completeness, we are anxious to know what has been done on subsidised routes and to see any information about impacts on the financial viability of the project.
We do not have any information on that specifically.
I have a question for Mr Mair. As the holder of the passenger rail franchise, do you consider it a realistic proposition that the Waverley railway will ever operate without a revenue subsidy?
Again, I would need to ask colleagues who have a more detailed understanding of the railway situation to comment on that. It is important to consider all aspects of the Waverley railway option, including bus services and the economic impacts—the whole thing must stack up.
Would you consider submitting to the committee some of the evidence to which you referred earlier? We are particularly interested in any modelling work, or other work, on bus routes and their integration. The committee would be grateful to receive that information from you as soon as possible.
We have a vision that we should be able to provide a genuine choice of transport for people in south-east Scotland for work, leisure and any other reason that they may have for travelling. As has been said, even if car travel is considered to be an option, we must remember that one person in three does not own a car, so we must provide a genuine choice of public transport. If we think of SESTRAN's area as a circle, 270° of it has effective rail and bus services to and from Edinburgh. The one area that does not have such services is the south, where there is no railway at the moment.
Of the top 10 SESTRAN projects, where does the Waverley railway project come?
I believe that it is in the top 10 projects in Scotland, according to the Scottish Executive. SESTRAN is undertaking a review of its regional transport strategy and we do not have a top 10, but it is certainly one of the key projects that need to be delivered to meet the overall regional objectives.
Nearer one than 10?
It is certainly in the top handful of projects—the definition of handful is probably somewhere between one and five, but I would like to think that the project is between one and three.
I have had two or three minutes to think about your question: what would we do if the project did not go ahead? We would go away and cry—I say that in all seriousness. Part of the strategic vision of social inclusion—never mind anything else—and a green transport policy is to give people choice. For example, the economic benefits of the central business case are about £75 million, but the overall economic benefit to the area probably works out at about £250 million. One cannot disregard that.
We will leave the difficulties of Markinch station to one side for the moment.
Sorry, convener, I did not mention it for any other reason.
It is okay—the issue is close to my heart. Do I take it that, apart from going away and crying if the project is not approved, you have no plan B for a regional transport strategy beyond the proposed Waverley railway line?
We have a regional transport strategy, but part of it relies on the Waverley line. The local plans of Midlothian Council and Scottish Borders Council, and indeed the Lothian and Borders structure plan, all take account of population expansion along the A7 corridor. As we all know, the Edinburgh housing and economic markets are at boiling point and people are having to move out whether they choose to or not. I hope, of course, that they would choose to move to our area, but some people have to move even further afield.
I thank you for coming today and for giving us evidence. If you have further information that will benefit the committee, I ask that you get it to us as soon as possible.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Our next set of witnesses are Robert Samson, director of the Rail Passengers Committee Scotland; David Spaven, trustee of the Waverley Route Trust; and Petra Biberbach, chairperson of the Waverley Route Trust. I understand that Petra Biberbach and Robert Samson wish to make short opening statements.
I thank the committee for inviting the Waverley Route Trust to today's meeting.
The Rail Passengers Committee Scotland works with a number of partners across Scotland on various railway projects. We were pleased to work with the Waverley Route Trust on this project. We support the reopening of the Waverley line and believe that the work that the Waverley Route Trust has done will add value to the project. We are here to support the trust and we wish the Waverley line to be reopened.
The Waverley Route Trust's response to the promoter's response to the Corus report suggests that the promoter has an insufficient grasp of markets for rail travel and lacks the confidence or vision to challenge conventional wisdom. Why is that risk-averse approach not the appropriate one to take when spending public money?
The cost of the scheme exercised us from an early stage. As the committee will be aware, under Railtrack costs in the rail industry have escalated enormously in the past five to 10 years. One of our worries was that the cost of the scheme was escalating from its original estimate of £25 million or £30 million to somewhere between £70 million and £129 million. We were worried that what was being achieved in return for that money was not good enough in terms of value for money or what would be secured by communities in the Borders. We felt that innovation and imagination were needed to come up with a service other than one that stopped at all stations and would take 61 minutes to get from Tweedbank to Edinburgh, which is an average speed of 35mph. The Scottish Executive has a key objective of securing modal shift, primarily from the car to public transport, but we are doubtful about the number of people who would leave their car at home for a train journey with an average speed of 35mph.
Did the promoter move too quickly in putting the bill into the parliamentary system? Would the project have benefited from greater consultation?
I think that the promoter was right to put the process in motion at the time that it did. However, it is a matter of great regret to us that the promoter has failed to take on board the sort of ideas that we have been flagging up and the proposals that came out of the Corus report. All that we asked was that the ideas that were raised by Corus and ourselves should be examined on a level playing field, using the same methodology and database. That never happened, however, although there have been ample opportunities in the past two or two-and-a-half years. We believe that it could have been done in parallel with the existing bill process, but unfortunately that has not happened.
In your response, are you suggesting that both the proposed railway and your alternative proposals will always be loss making and can therefore be justified only on the grounds of economic, social and environmental benefits?
Yes. It is pretty well understood that there are few rail services in Scotland that make anything like a conventional profit. Railways are justified by their wider economic, social and environmental benefits, which are recognised by the Scottish Executive and the United Kingdom Government.
In your response to the promoter's response, you suggest that the promoter should prove all of its critical assertions about the Corus report. Why should it?
I think that it should prove them because its response to the Corus report contains many examples of situations in which it has failed to consider core issues, such as the potential for leisure travel. The promoter undertook stated preference surveys of residents of the areas in which it is proposed that the stations will be situated but, evidently, it did not consider leisure travel from Edinburgh. However, Edinburgh is a tourism hotspot, with people looking to take day trips out. The idea of enabling tourists to go on a train into the heart of Borders country—ideally to Melrose, which is the tourism hotspot in the Borders—should have been considered by the promoter. That it was not is a matter of great regret, but it is never too late. We can still put in place a railway line that will ensure that people leave their cars at home and which will bring tourists into the Borders in a way that will have an important economic benefit for the region.
Does the proposed route and the location of stations maximise the potential for integration with other modes of transport? If not, how might the scope for integration be improved?
As I mentioned earlier, Galashiels provides an excellent opportunity in terms of integrated transport. The bus station will be 50yd away from the railway station. That bus station is already the hub of the Borders bus service so, in terms of integrated transport, the proposal will go with the grain and will build on what is there already. People in the Borders go into Galashiels for shopping and other activities. I think that there is an intention to bring buses into Tweedbank as well. That is sensible, but one has to try to go with the grain in terms of what public transport can do best. That is the beauty of the situation in Galashiels—people go there anyway. People who live in the Borders and have a car probably do not realise that public transport in the Borders is quite extensive, largely because of subsidy from Scottish Borders Council. There is a great opportunity there.
I think that colleagues are, not surprisingly, going to pick up on the Stow issue later. Can you expand a little on your views about Tweedbank? You raise several key issues about the need for a loop at Tweedbank and what that could do to make other services attractive, and so on. There is also the issue of freight.
When the trust was set up in 2002, one of our concerns was that the railway would not have sufficient flexibility. There is no capacity on the proposed railway to handle anything other than the planned half-hourly all-stations service from Tweedbank to Edinburgh. There is no capacity for the line to handle any freight, except during the night—which would not be very popular—or on Sundays. Equally, if people wanted to charter trains from the south of England or from Glasgow, or if they wanted to run steam-hauled excursions out from Edinburgh, extra capacity would be needed. That would be achieved primarily through the creation of a crossing loop at Stow instead of the dynamic loops that the current scheme proposes.
I also want to pick up on the Melrose issue, which we touched on last week. Given the number of people who visit Melrose, you do not understand why the route stops at Tweedbank and does not go on to Melrose. Last week, we were told that there would be quite a cost involved in that—certainly, that was what I was told when I spoke privately to the promoters. In paragraph 20 of your written submission, you state that the estimated capital cost of a Melrose stop is £6.7 million, which is an underestimate in comparison to the figure that the promoter suggests. There would be technical difficulties involving roads, and so on, and the feeling is that the distance between Melrose and the station at Tweedbank is walkable or cyclable. Given the difficulties that would be involved, why do you still suggest that there should be a station at Melrose instead of a terminus at Tweedbank?
There are two parts to that question, the first of which concerns cost. The promoter has never considered the costs and benefits of a 1.5 mile extension of the line from Tweedbank to Melrose. The promoter considered a longer extension through to Charlesfield and on to Hawick. I do not think that the promoter would claim that it did more than some fairly rudimentary work on that, but it came up with a cost in excess of £30 million. It is important to bear in mind where the main breaches of the old railway are; you can see them when you look at the road from Galashiels through Melrose to Newton St Boswells. The majority of those breaches are beyond Melrose in the St Boswells area. The railway could run from Tweedbank beside the Melrose bypass and have very little impact on surrounding properties. There is still an old station with a platform at Melrose, and there is still room for a single track to go in there. The possible costs and benefits of this scheme have not been evaluated by the promoter.
It would be the same as the situation with St Andrews and Leuchars.
The debate about Melrose is interesting, but I have to point out that it is outwith the scope of the bill to extend the railway line to Melrose, so it is difficult for us to consider. However, do you think that the railway would not be viable without the extension to Melrose?
You asked earlier about risk aversion. We should be careful not to mistake risk aversion for prudence. Some of the suggestions that we have made would assist in the building of a better business case and a better case for a railway. When we say that we would like there to be regard for the idea of an extension of the line to Melrose, we are having regard to the idea of a railway that can deliver additional benefits to those delivered by commuter traffic, such as freight and an express service. That is what we mean by being prudent.
The convener pointed out that neither your points about Melrose nor your other proposals are within the bill that sits in front of us. If the committee were to accept what you say, we would have to throw out the bill as it stands and return to limits of deviation, notifications and so on. People would have to be notified of the changes that you suggest and there would be a delay. Are you saying that it would be better for us to do that, and get what Mr Spaven called the right route and the right railway for the Borders, than to go on with what we have in front of us at the moment?
I will respond to the point about what impact that would have on the bill. I am not an expert on bill processes, so I must be careful about what I say. Corus identified that the only place in its scheme that would take the alternative line outwith the current limits of deviation is at Newcraighall, which as you know is in railway industry ownership anyway. We are not talking about taking the line into people's back gardens. Newcraighall was the only place where it was felt that there was a definite need to go beyond the limits of deviation.
I want to push you on that. If we were a planning authority considering a planning application we might, as you say, tweak the proposals or simply notify a few people, which might add eight weeks to the process. However, our understanding is that whether we disagree with your proposals or not, to progress as you suggest—even for phase 1 of your proposals—would not require tweaking, but would require that the bill be resubmitted, which would result in delay and extra expense. Would that be a price worth paying to get what you consider to be the best route and service?
Our understanding is that our proposals would not require the drastic process that Margaret Smith describes, although we accept that the extension from Tweedbank to Melrose is a different case. We have said in our evidence that that extension would have to follow later, because it would require a different bill; all the advice that we have been given demonstrates that. However, we have not been given to understand that massive changes to the bill would be required to accommodate some of our core ideas. I emphasise that I am not an expert on parliamentary bills and that I would have to take counsel from others on the matter.
Has the counsel that you have taken been only from the Corus report, or have you taken independent legal advice?
To be sure that you understand fully, I point out that the Waverley Route Trust is made up of 11 trustees, all of whom are volunteers. The only funding that we have received is through the Rail Passengers Committee Scotland, which funded the Corus study. We are here in a personal capacity; we do not have at our disposal the kind of funding that the promoter has. We can find out about issues through, for example, discussions with MSPs who sat on the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine Railway and Linked Improvements Bill Committee. We are limited in that we can be guided only by the information that is out there.
You suggested that we could tweak certain aspects of the bill—I was just trying to ascertain the knowledge base under that suggestion. I want to find out whether that is an assertion or legal opinion.
We have examined the matter and we have asked people.
We have had a number of meetings with the partnership in the past year or 18 months. A day-long discussion and debate was held with the promoter's consultants in December last year about the exact implications of the bill. However, in some ways, there were more questions than answers because we are in unknown territory, which is why I am a bit less than definite in my response.
The promoter has figures for its case, with which you disagree. Will you be a bit more specific about your disagreement with the promoter's figures in relation to the station at Stow? Bluntly, where would the additional passengers who are needed to make the station viable come from?
The promoter suggests that 10 passengers a day would use Stow station. If the trust felt that only 10 people a day would use a station that would cost up to £1 million, we say that that would not be worth it and would not represent sensible public expenditure. However, something has gone wrong with the modelling and the approach to Stow. Part of the problem is that the catchment area has been drawn too narrowly. Lauder is just 5 or 6 miles over the hill, so it is possible to foresee people catching a minibus, if there was a fast service, or driving to park at Stow, if there was a park-and-ride facility.
No doubt we will raise the question with the people from Stow. Everything you say concerns fast trains. I agree that it would be great if someone could take a minibus over to Stow and catch a fast train. I understand that you want the average speed of the service to be increased, but simply saying that that is a good idea is like making the motherhood-and-apple-pie argument; it is obvious that fast trains are a good idea. I am not clear about your suggestion as to how that would happen in practice. Let us get to the nuts and bolts of the argument. How will we reduce the journey time by 20 minutes?
It is not rocket science: it comes down to observation of traditional railway operating and business practice throughout the rest of the British railway system. The current proposal is for a strange hybrid service, as Petra Biberbach said earlier. It is for a one-size-fits-all service. Someone joins the train at Tweedbank; the train calls next at Galashiels—that is fine, it is to be expected—but it then stops at Gorebridge, Newtongrange, Eskbank, Shawfair, Newcraighall and Brunstane before crawling into Waverley station 61 minutes after it left Tweedbank.
I am sorry if my next question shows a lack of understanding of your suggestion. If the service is half-hourly at peak times, would the train stop at all the stations? Do you envisage someone getting on the train at Tweedbank and going straight to Gorebridge, for example? Are you suggesting that some trains would be stopping trains or would all of them be express trains?
What we are suggesting under this option is that trains would run straight through. If we consider current demand, we see that there is not a high level of demand for a service from the Galashiels area into Midlothian—certainly that is the case if one travels on the X95 bus, as I do often. The vast majority of people go into Edinburgh. Our proposal would see a stop at Shawfair, however.
So, on the same line, you would have a half-hourly peak-time fast service from Tweedbank to Edinburgh and a slow train coming into the city from Gorebridge and so on?
Yes.
The reason why I ask is that when there is such a mix of services in other places, all that happens is that the fast train has to sit and wait until the slow train goes down the line. The trains pile up in a queue, one after the other. Have you worked out whether your proposal can be achieved?
Yes. Corus has modelled the proposal using a sophisticated timetable modelling system that it uses throughout the country. Corus has proposed double tracking the line from Gorebridge to Edinburgh. Instead of the current arrangement under which single track is primarily planned, Corus believes that a more robust solution would be to have double track on the parts of the route that would be most intensely used, because that would accommodate the local stopping train and the express service. Although that is standard railway business practice, sufficient capacity is required.
We are talking about opening one line with two separate railway services.
To have slow trains, semi-fast trains and express services is standard British railway practice—that happens all over the country. Railway timetablers are very capable of modelling that basic facet of operation. For example, the train from North Berwick to Edinburgh may stop at all the stations, but not far away could be an east coast main line Great North Eastern Railway train that stops nowhere in that area. It is standard railway practice to timetable in such provision, provided that enough track capacity is available.
Do you plan to discuss with the promoter your report's recommendations or the promoter's response to the report?
We have been in discussion since June 2004. At all times, we have made available our ideas and thoughts. We would have liked a more constructive dialogue to emerge earlier, rather than its being left to this late stage, because we felt at all times that we could add value to, rather than negate, the scheme. If the dialogue had been more constructive, we probably would not need to be sitting here now, still trying to put across ideas. I say with respect that it is right to stick to a timetable, but it is more important to have the right railway that will serve for the next 20 to 30 years. If it takes a year longer to achieve that, so be it.
What discussions have you had with the promoter, the Executive, Network Rail or First ScotRail about the potential designation of any reopened railway as a community railway? Would any such designation delay the scheme?
Such designation should not delay the scheme. We have several times discussed the community rail concept with the Executive and with the promoter. As members may know, the community rail idea can have many meanings, but in essence it means more local control and flexibility, and it means maximising revenue and reducing costs when possible to increase a railway's social and economic value. That concept is developing south of the border and is being promoted by the Department for Transport. Network Rail has appointed a senior manager south of the border to push the idea forward for various pilot projects. That has not happened yet in Scotland, because the Executive wants to see how the concept works south of the border.
I have one or two questions for Mr Samson in his capacity as director of the Rail Passengers Committee Scotland. As the national rail passenger representative organisation, can you tell us the potential passenger demand for a reopened railway and can you break down the location of such passengers?
We cannot give specific figures for a reopened Borders railway, other than the figures that are in the Corus report. I do not know whether the committee has a copy of that. We employed consultants, who delivered the model in the report.
Would the proposed frequency and speed of service prove attractive to potential rail passengers? Do such journey lengths and a speed of 35mph satisfy passengers in other parts of Scotland?
Passengers take several factors into account. Critical factors are service frequency and the speed from point A to point B. It is interesting that the journey time that has been proposed to the committee is 57 minutes from Galashiels to Edinburgh. The British Rail timetable of 1954 showed a journey time of less than 55 minutes. We are talking about reopening a railway line 50-odd years down the line with a longer journey time than that of a steam locomotive in the 1950s. We want people primarily to get out of their cars and to use public transport, but I do not see a journey time of 61 minutes as particularly attractive to car users.
We heard when we took evidence last week that housebuilders did not believe that that is a length of journey that will attract people to buy houses. I still find it a little difficult to understand how the fast trains will interlink with the slow trains. As someone, like Tricia Marwick, who travels from Fife into Edinburgh, I know that the aspiration is to have fast trains and, at other times, slower trains—I am sure that all the modelling was done for particular times—but inevitably what appears to happen over and over again is that a fast train gets trapped behind a slow train. Would the situation be any different under your proposal?
The service that we are promoting—slow trains, semi-fast trains and fast trains—in theory works through the entire Scottish network now.
Or does not work, as the case may be.
It is up to Network Rail to have enough capacity on the network to facilitate the timetable. Before the timetable is published for passengers it goes through various modelling stages. From day to day, events happen on the ground. Trains fail, so there is a back-up and the fast train sits in a siding and so on. It is up to Network Rail and First ScotRail to have reliable trains and a reliable infrastructure to support the timetable. The timetable is deliverable, but it is up to the railway industry to get its act together to ensure that it is delivered. The system works between 80 and 90 per cent of the time. The trick is for the operators to up their game to get the system to work between 95 and 100 per cent of the time. On paper, it works in other areas.
The Scottish transport appraisal guidance 2 appraisal assumes a fare of about £6.50 for a single passenger journey from Edinburgh to Galashiels. How does that compare with similar journeys elsewhere in Scotland?
It compares favourably with the rest of the ScotRail network. I suggest that fares on the Strathclyde Passenger Transport network are cheaper over the mileage than the rest of the ScotRail network. The fare is comparable with fares from Fife into Edinburgh, Perth into Edinburgh or North Berwick into Edinburgh.
Thank you.
I thank the witnesses for coming to give evidence. We will call a halt for lunch now, and will resume at 1 o'clock, when we will hear first from supporters of Stow station.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome everyone back to the meeting. In this afternoon's session we will continue our consideration of route options and the choice of stations, of how the railway would integrate with other modes of transport, and of the viability of the bus service from the Borders to Edinburgh. Our witnesses are Bill Jamieson, who is the steering group co-ordinator for Stow station supporters; Alan Buchan, who is a member of the steering group of Stow station supporters; Hamish Hunter, who is chairman of the parish of Stow community council; and Bob Fleet, who is a member of the parish of Stow community council.
Before I proceed with our statement, I would like to clarify a small point. Your correspondence referred to us as Stow community council but we are, in fact, elected members from the parish of Stow community council. I am the chairman.
Thank you, Mr Hunter. Bill Jamieson is now with us. Would you like to make a short opening statement, Bill?
Good afternoon, convener. I apologise for being slightly late. I thought that the meeting was going to start at quarter past 1. I thank the committee for inviting us to give evidence today. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this opportunity—after all, it is the culmination of our efforts to get the right outcome for our village. I have been exhorted by the clerk to keep my comments as short as possible, so I will confine myself to two topics. I will start with some background to the Stow station supporters group.
Thank you. It is true that the committee clerk exhorted you to keep your remarks short, but in his defence I must say that I exhorted him to exhort you to keep your comments short to allow committee members as long as possible to ask questions.
Obviously the Stow organisation supports the development of a station in the village. However, would you like to suggest any other changes to the current proposal, and why would you suggest them?
Are you talking about changes to the overall scheme?
Yes.
I have to declare an interest as a trustee of the Waverley Route Trust, and I would like the trust's proposals for an express train service out to the Borders to become reality. I am partly motivated by the fact that that seems to be the most likely way of incorporating in the proposals a stop at Stow. It is necessary to give a decent service to Galashiels and the central Borders. Midlothian should also be included because it would make a much more reliable outer suburban service to Gorebridge if it was not linked to the single-track section south of Gorebridge that goes out to the Borders.
How do you expect public transport to develop in the Stow area if Stow does not get a local railway station?
I believe that the X95 bus service will be decimated. In our objection to the committee in November 2003, we did some survey work on the bus service at the A7 corridor. A little more than 200 people used it every day in each direction.
If there is a question mark over the number of people who might use a station at Stow, were it decided to site one there, would the residents of Stow be happy to accept further housing developments in the area?
Some would be, but some would not be. It is the same everywhere. Limited land is available under our council's present local plan and we do not know what will come out of the local plan in future; it is being redrafted at the moment. I personally would not mind the siting of further housing developments in Stow, but some people might. The situation is the same in every town. That is a reasonable response to your question.
Do you think that Stow residents who regularly drive into Edinburgh would be likely to use park-and-ride facilities at stations in Midlothian?
If there was not a stop in Stow?
Yes.
They might do.
They would?
Yes, possibly.
What about the argument that we heard this morning, which was that it would make sense for those people who live north of Galashiels to drive north and use a park-and-ride facility at Stow, for example, if a station were settled there, rather than to drive back into Galashiels to use the park-and-ride facility there? Does that argument commend itself to you?
Yes.
No provision is being made for any parking at Galashiels, so people would have to drive to Tweedbank, which is another 3 miles past Galashiels. I would prefer not to start off my journey by going, in my perception, the wrong way.
I want to ask some questions about the figures on the number of residents who use the bus. My colleague Christine May will pick up on the issue in future questioning. Do you have any information on how many Stow residents regularly use the bus to get to work or to access education in Edinburgh? Why do you think that more people would use the train for such journeys?
That issue was dealt with in the survey to which I referred earlier, which includes many tables. We did a survey on the buses quite recently. We counted 30 people a day who used the bus from Stow, of whom perhaps half a dozen used the bus towards Edinburgh as a commuter service. Probably about the same number used the bus to Galashiels. Most of the patronage on the bus is for shopping and leisure trips. I am sorry—it is not easy to find the relevant table in the report just like that. Would it be acceptable if I provided you with a copy of the report later on?
That would be very helpful. I think that you mention the figure of 30 return journeys somewhere in your submission. You clarify that that does not include journeys that schoolchildren make, but you have already mentioned the schoolchildren who go to Gala. It would be helpful if you could ensure that the figures that you give us include the educational dimension of bus use.
At present, there is a bus to Edinburgh at about 7.30, but many commuters work in the Borders. An Edinburgh-centric view always seems to be taken. I work at Borders general hospital. The first bus in that direction from Stow is at 8.30, meaning that I could not get to work before 10 o'clock. If the railway comes, there will be trains going past from 7.30 onwards.
On your figures on the number of trips, paragraph 7 of your submission states that
We do not have sufficient resources to carry out survey work and provide numbers but, with a station at Stow, the village would be uniquely situated relative to Edinburgh. The station would be 25 miles south of Edinburgh, which, under the Waverley Route Trust proposals, would be less than half an hour from the city centre. In effect, it would be an hour and a half closer to the city than any comparable location in Scotland that is served by train where one can access outdoor activities such as walking and cycling—I am thinking of places such as Blair Atholl and Pitlochry. Stow is a perfect place to start a cycle tour or to go for a hill walk in pleasant rolling countryside, which is why the station could attract substantial numbers of people. There are many historic buildings in Stow that are not marketed at present. The village has a lot going for it historically—it goes back hundreds of years. With the right marketing, the village could be a big draw for rail-based tourism.
There is also the possibility of an integrated minibus going to Lauder. Thirlestane Castle is a major but undervisited tourist attraction. If there was a connecting minibus service from Stow to meet trains and take people to Lauder and Thirlestane, there would be a market for incoming trips.
The issue of the Stow catchment relates to the numbers, as well as to whether it would be useful to have a park-and-ride facility at Stow if there were a station there. Do you agree that with the station would have to come a park-and-ride facility? Would such a facility be viable? Where would it be located?
If a park-and-ride facility was the measure that made the station viable, we would have no problem with it. It would not have to be very big. Even if a hundred people a day used the station, a hundred cars would not have to be accommodated. I went to Drem to try to establish what the usage was there. About a third of passengers walked away from the station, about a third were picked up and about a third went into parked cars. On that basis, if we could accommodate 40 to 50 car parking spaces around Stow station, that would be more than adequate. There are places where that could be done, so there is no physical problem with accommodating a small car park around the station site.
On the basis of what evidence do you question whether the proposed line and service offer value for money?
Sorry, but where is that statement made? Is it in our evidence?
The reference that I have is to evidence A16—your evidence—paragraphs 13 to 14.
David Spaven dealt with that point this morning. The current proposals are probably the cheapest, but they do not necessarily offer the best benefits. We are saying that the patronage figure for Stow would be much bigger than the promoter thinks that it would be and that the income from a station would more than pay for the operating costs of stopping trains there.
The witnesses from the Waverley Route Trust told us that they want a twin-track service, which would need as much double track as possible. Would your suggestion eliminate that possibility?
No. The Waverley Route Trust's proposals are for double track from Edinburgh to Gorebridge. Beyond that, the line would be single track, except for a short section of double track at Stow to allow trains to pass one another.
I am probably being a bit thick technically, but will you explain why the 4-mile stretch would become a 2-mile stretch if there was a station?
If you imagine two trains approaching Stow on single track, the important factor is the time between one train entering one end of the loop and the other train leaving the same end. I suppose that the ideal situation is for the trains to pass one another in the middle of the loop—I am talking about dynamic loops, in which trains do not stop. The important factor is the time that it takes for a train to travel from one end of the loop to another. If there is a stop in the middle of the loop, more time is factored in because the train is stationary.
Are you saying that if the trains are travelling more slowly, less track is needed?
Yes.
I see.
In paragraphs 10 to 12 of the submission from Stow station supporters, you say that there are no technical barriers to building a station at Stow. However, the promoter takes a different view. How do you explain that?
The promoter has always referred to a requirement of the HMRI—I forget what the acronym stands for; I think it is HM railway inspectorate—although what is being referred to is guidance rather than an absolute requirement. Corus Rail Consultancy advised us that a risk-based approach would permit the construction of a station on the curve at Stow. Although there is a curve, I think that it has a 760m radius, which is not a very tight curve, given that a curve radius of 1,000m is the limit. The crucial matter is the widening of the gap between the carriages and the platforms and I think that the British Railways standards of 10 or more years ago specified that the radius must be about 250m to 300m before there is any need to increase the gap, based on the curvature.
At its meeting in June 2002, the Waverley railway partnership joint committee said that there were no significant engineering issues in relation to building a station at Stow. Subsequently, issues emerged in the course of the search for dispensations and other routes, as Mr Jamieson said. However, the community has never been consulted, although the favoured options for the station that have been quoted are the ones that raise the most serious engineering difficulties.
On passenger numbers, your submission suggests that Stow station would have approximately 100 return trips per day, whereas the promoter says that it would have 10. How do you explain that discrepancy?
We do not predict that the station will have 100 trips a day, but the Transport Research and Information Network study said that such a figure was perfectly possible. We would be much more cautious than that, because we recognise that people do not act in accordance with the responses that they give to surveys. If we arbitrarily halve that figure, we end up with 50 passengers a day, which seems quite feasible when we compare it with the figures for Drem or Barrhill.
Have you done any detailed survey work to back that up?
Yes. Our survey work included not only Stow but Lauder, Clovenfords, Fountainhall and all the isolated houses in between. We received responses from about 650 households, which is a massive sample when one considers that the total population within that area is about 2,500.
You just said that a station at Stow would extend the opportunities for tourism and leisure use. However, revenue support for the project is predicated upon increased house building along the length of the route. How many additional houses might be provided around Stow to help to support the costs of the project? What impact might such house building have on leisure use?
Given its topographical position, it would be difficult to accommodate a great deal of house building in Stow. The most obvious piece of land available is on a flood plain, which one assumes is a no-go area for house building, and the alternative is on a quite steep hillside. The areas of land that would be suitable for substantial house building are quite limited. Therefore, house building is unlikely to have a significant adverse impact on the attractiveness of the place for visitors who come for leisure purposes.
So Stow is looking for the benefits of the railway for its existing population, without envisaging any increase in the population round about the village.
A major housing development has taken place in Lauder, which is just 5 miles to the east of Stow. About 40 per cent of the respondents to the survey that Mr Jamieson mentioned were from Lauder. A major housing development has also been proposed at Fountainhall. Although the number of houses in Lauder will increase hugely, that could not happen in Stow for the reasons that Bill Jamieson mentioned. Within a reasonable catchment area around Stow, there is plenty of scope for house building and there is plenty of house building going on at the moment.
Are the residents of those villages content that house prices in the villages would increase by the £1,500 premium, which is, I understand, part of the revenue support for the station at Stow?
I do not imagine that they would be happy, but developers might well accept such a premium.
For my final question on the business case and the STAG appraisal, I want to return to the evidence behind your assertion that more than 10 people a day would use the station. Other than the survey responses—in my experience, people always say yes when they are asked whether they would use a new train service—what hard evidence is there to support the idea that people from outlying villages would change their journey habits and use Stow, despite the price and the likely journey time between those villages and Stow?
To some extent that depends upon the kind of service that will eventually be provided. If the service, as proposed, stops at the six stations in 8 and a half miles that are apparently needed between Brunstane and Gorebridge, there would be increases in journey times. Therefore, use by people from the outlying villages would obviously be less likely than if there was the kind of train service that Corus proposes, which would have a shorter journey time. However, people would still use the service. A large number of young people now live in Stow as well as older people. They commute by car to Edinburgh and many of them have said that they would change to the train, but they are not prepared to use the bus because it is uncomfortable, slow and unreliable.
When Corus did the work for the Waverley Route Trust, the transport specialist it employed to do the work had experience of rural railways in Wales—the Aberystwyth line in particular. He brought to bear his British Rail experience on that sort of line to arrive at his traffic projections. His projections broadly supported the figures in our survey. We have a back-up for our numbers, but there is no hard evidence of the future: a leap of faith must be taken at some point.
I come back to something that you said earlier. You said that 30 people travel by bus into Edinburgh every day and that probably six of those people are actually commuters.
I am sorry—if I said that, I was not correct. About 30 to 35 people use the bus every day from Stow, but they travel in both directions. About a third of them go to Edinburgh and two thirds go to Galashiels. Of course, that does not include the schoolchildren. About 30 adults use the bus: 10 go to Edinburgh and 20 go to Galashiels.
So, whatever way we cut it, a small number of people currently use public transport. I presume that the proposed patronage of the railway is not based on people who currently use the bus. You hope that people who currently use their own cars would use the train. What evidence do you have of the number of journeys that people make from Stow to Edinburgh and back?
We have evidence from the survey. It is important to note that the survey that we had done three years ago was not only about asking people what they would do in the future, as it also established what they were currently doing. For example, question 16 in the survey asked about what journeys people would use the train for—[Interruption.] Sorry—I have the appropriate information here: 108 people in the survey always used the car to get to work in Edinburgh and 52 went to Galashiels by car or van. Fifteen people went to Edinburgh by car or bus, depending on what they were doing on a particular day. In total, 375 people were travelling from Stow to either Edinburgh or Galashiels by car or bus. We established that a large number of people travel out of the village in either direction—north or south—every day, so the market is there.
You have referred to the Transport Research and Information Network study a few times. The committee does not have a copy of that study. Would you be kind enough to let us have a copy of it?
Yes. That is no problem.
Even with our current public transport—the bus, which you asked about in respect of patronage—the promoter's memorandum states:
Can I just go back to money? You have made an estimate of £200,000 to £310,000 for the construction of a station. Is that correct?
That is correct.
The promoter estimates that a station with two platforms would cost £800,000. It has been pointed out to us that a new operational station with two platforms in West Yorkshire cost in excess of £2 million. People at the Scottish Parliament do not like to talk about things going up in price all the time, but we are now sceptical of suggestions that things will be cheap to build. On what do you base your figures?
I understand your scepticism; however, the promoter always quotes the price of building on live railways, and that is not a good guide to the price of building on what is effectively a greenfield site. It is common knowledge that railway costs have risen by a factor of two or three since privatisation. However, I am a professional civil engineer and I cannot see where the prices that are quoted to me for the building of stations come from, although I understand that building on a live railway has health and safety implications and so on.
What about running costs? You quote £20,000 per annum as a station's operating cost. There might be no staff there, but that might appear to be a low estimate, considering the need for leasing, utilities, maintenance, renewals and other such things. What do you base that figure on? I am not saying that you are right or wrong; I am just trying to get the basis for your estimate.
Sure. The figure of £20,000 is taken straight from the Scott Wilson report of 2000. I think that I allowed a little bit for inflation. I have no access to anything on which to base the figure other than what was in the Scott Wilson report, and I am assuming that that figure is realistic.
Let me move along the table and change the subject a wee bit. The witnesses have concerns regarding the increase in road freight traffic that will pass through Stow after the railway reopens. Can you expand on that?
At the moment, most of the freight that is taken down to Galashiels and beyond comes down the A7, and the plan is for the amount of freight that is carried to the central Borders area to increase. As we know, a new Asda store is proposed and the Tesco stores are going to increase in size. Many other things are going to increase, and we have no reason to expect that freight will turn around and go in another direction. The A7 is the shortest route south from Edinburgh. Even vehicles going to Hawick take the A7 rather than the A68 and are quite happy to go along at the restricted speed of 50 mph. It is an ideal road for them; however, that creates a lot of congestion. We feel that, if the population of the central Borders area increases—as is predicted—the amount of freight will increase along with that.
Is that not inevitable if the place gets bigger and busier and the railway is reopened?
Yes, perhaps, but we feel that the A7 is also in need of some work and improvement and that that should be taken into account. The increase in population and industrial wealth in the central hub of the Borders is a major part of the promoter's arguments, but that has a knock-on effect on us. The point that we are trying to make is that we will suffer as a result.
We accept that it is inevitable that there will be development in the Borders, whether it is at Stow or not. To allow for that, more road freight must come down for the house building, and that freight will come down the A7. Ironically, that will go through the village of Stow and we will get all the pain but no gain. The Strategic Rail Authority has also said that it has no plans to examine the possibility of using the line for freight within 10 years and that there is adequate capacity on the east and west coast main lines. That might be the case for the central belt and the east and west coasts, but it is not the case for the Borders—we are directly affected, so we can expect more freight.
Arguably, all that Stow needs is a bypass; it does not need a station.
We could argue for a bypass for the freight traffic, but we would also like some of the gain from the railway for passenger traffic. We will get the pain of the railway going through without that gain.
Alternatively, you could argue that the whole project is flawed because the impact on places such as Stow has not been taken into account and it should therefore all be thrown out until the promoter comes back with something that is properly worked out. Would you support that argument?
As Hamish Hunter has already said, there are mixed opinions in the village about the benefits or otherwise of the railway. The one thing on which the whole village is unanimous is that the worst that could happen to us would be a railway without a station at Stow. We are here to support the inclusion of a station at Stow in the bill.
I will press you a little. Are you prepared to say that, without a station at Stow, you do not want the railway at all?
That has already been done by a survey. One of the promoter's surveys found that 50 per cent of those who said that they supported the railway would change their views and oppose it if there were no station at Stow.
I have been lobbying to get the railway for almost 11 years now, and most of the Stow station supporters see the need to have a railway to the central Borders regardless of whether there is a station at Stow. My personal view is that it is vital that the railway runs not only to Galashiels but, eventually, to Hawick and right through to Carlisle. Although I would be extremely disappointed if there were no station at Stow, I still think that it is vital that the railway gets the go-ahead.
That is a personal viewpoint, Mr Jamieson. It is not necessarily shared by all the inhabitants of Stow.
It is not necessarily shared by all the inhabitants of Stow, but it is the common sentiment of the Stow station supporters group that there should be a railway. If there is no railway, we cannot get a station.
If there is to be a station at Stow, it is likely that there will be pressure for increased house building in the Stow area. There are 350-odd houses in Stow at the moment. As one of the consequences of having a station at Stow, the pressure from developers and others for house building in that area will be almost irresistible. How do you feel about that?
We are in a no-win situation. If we do not have a station in Stow, the economy of the village will die completely. As I have already said, the bus service could become almost non-existent, as far as running a business from the village is concerned. If there is a station, there will inevitably be pressure for new houses, and we just have to accept that. If the train comes through our village without a stop, we will really be in a very poor situation.
I am not sure that there is any evidence that that pressure would not come anyway, because Stow is only 25 miles from the centre of Edinburgh. You can see the housing creeping out already. In fact, there are already massive developments in Galashiels and a big development in Fountainhall. We are going to be faced with car-based pressure for housing development, regardless of whether the railway comes to Stow.
As has been said, there are great time constraints on the railway. Unfortunately, the promoters have put us into competition with Shawfair, which is a large development. We see that as a large potential development for the future, but if a station at Stow is not included in the initial rail build, we do not see any scope for a subsequent development at Stow when the railway is live and it will cost £1 million to build a station, as Bill Jamieson said. Being pragmatic about it, we think that a development of 3,500 houses at Shawfair would subsequently get a station once the railway is running. As the bill stands, we are in danger of finding that Stow has a population without a station, while Shawfair will have a station without a population.
There is great emphasis on patronage from new housing. We have already demonstrated in our survey, a copy of which we can give you, that there is enough demand from existing housing. That is certainly the case in Galashiels and in other communities in the Borders. It is not absolutely essential to have new housing to meet the requirements that would justify the demand for a station.
Gentlemen, thank you for coming to give evidence. We would be grateful if you could forward to the clerk as soon as possible some of the supporting documents that have been referred to. That would be extremely useful.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
I welcome our next witnesses, who form the first of three panels for the promoter. First, we will deal with route options and the choice of stations. Keith Wallace will make a short opening statement.
Throughout the project, our approach to route options and stations has had three main themes: an integrated approach to operations, infrastructure and demand to help to derive the best value for money; treating all options equitably and transparently to help to generate support and to minimise opposition; and using pragmatic and conservative assumptions to ensure that the proposals are robust and deliverable and have industry support.
I ask Ted Brocklebank to kick off the questions.
I think that Margaret Smith is to start. I am happy to do so, but she has prepared.
The convener was just checking that we were awake.
I do not think so and nor does the promoter. We started the process of examining the route back in 1998. As I said, we started with the full range of options from Edinburgh to Carlisle, which included through-running, express services and freight. In pruning that through an iterative process, we have not been constrained.
You have ended up with what people perceive to be a Borders railway that has only two stations in the Borders. Why is that?
Quite simply, it is seen as a first step, as the bill and the promoter's proposals show. The promoter is keen to go further, but we were tasked with coming up with the most cost-effective solution for taking that first step.
I am a pragmatic politician. The proposal may be a first step, but there is competition for public money. When the Borders and Midlothian have had their segment of public money for the railway project, what is the chance that you will get more public money to go that bit further? You will be back in the queue behind all those parts of the country that have not had funding for transport infrastructure projects while more than £100 million has been spent on the Borders railway. Is it realistic to say that the proposal is a first step? If you do not increase the number of stations now, the possibility might be put back and it could be a decade or more before you can revisit it.
I think that Bruce Rutherford wants to comment on that, but I will start. First, it may well be the case that we will be able to go further in the future. In all the other rail schemes that have reopened, it has been crucial to take the first step and to get the scheme up and running. I am thinking of the Bathgate line, which is now looking at a half-hourly service, and the Robin Hood line, which was broken down into three stages, all of which have now been implemented.
It is fair to say that in the long term the councils would like the line to go all the way to Carlisle. A twin-track line that carries freight as well as passengers is everybody's dream, but we have taken a pragmatic view. A hard business sense comes in at this stage and says, "Now is the time. What can we actually achieve, given the climate?" We firmly believe that the business case that we have presented to you is a good, solid transport case, an economic case and a social case. We are trying to live within the reality of today. That is why we put the first stage to you now.
Okay, so you are being pragmatic and realistic and this is your first step. What is your second step?
The second stage would be to take the line further, perhaps to Hawick or perhaps all the way to Carlisle. We would have to do another feasibility study to work out the details and take it to the next stage.
Would it not be sensible to take the line a mile and a half down the road to Melrose before you start thinking about going to Carlisle?
We were asked by Sarah Boyack, the then Minister for Transport and the Environment, to consider whether the terminus should be at Charlesfield, Galashiels or Gorebridge. We decided that going to Charlesfield would cost too much; it would not give benefits that would outweigh the costs. At that time, we thought that to stretch the line and include that extra length would be detrimental to the business case. Melrose never arose as an option and we never felt that the extra mile and a half would add much to the case.
I ask you the first question that I asked Mr Wallace. Have you been constrained by the Scottish Executive's specification, which was laid down by Sarah Boyack? It said that she would consider Charlesfield but it did not ask you to consider, for example, Melrose.
We were not constrained when we started work on the scheme in 1999. We considered more than 20 options at that stage. We even considered branch lines to Peebles and Kelso. The option that Sarah Boyack asked us to investigate, which we then worked up in greater detail, is the option that is in front of you today.
You are probably more aware than anyone else in the room, except the residents of Stow, of the potential impact on Stow of not only the first step but the second step. You said that the second step would be to extend the line, but you did not say that there would be a station at Stow. As we have heard, people who live in Stow will get a lot of negative impacts from the railway without getting any of its benefits. That puts them in a unique position among Borders residents.
It is fair to say that the promoter has a great deal of sympathy for the people of Stow. With no station in the proposal, they definitely feel as though they are missing out. However, the economic side of the argument tells us that only 10 people would be picked up at Stow. The scheme does not preclude a station at Stow in the future. However, the time to consider that would be when a development of any form guaranteed patronage.
You said two or three things in response to my question, but nothing that precludes a station for Stow in the future.
That is correct.
We are also being told that there are technical barriers to the creation of a station at Stow.
In a particular location, that is the case. There is a barrier to having the station at the existing site—the old site. However, space is available further down the line; one of my engineering colleagues could address that point. Although the land that is within the limits of deviation does not exclude a station at Stow, additional planning consents would be required to secure the approach to the site. A compulsory purchase order would also be required if the local authority is to build access roads into the site.
Right. The residents of Stow told us about the topographic problems of the flood plain and the hilly conditions around the village. They are saying not that there is no capacity for more houses in the area—they told us that there would be development in the wider catchment area—but that the problem is overdevelopment in the village. Are the residents right or are you right?
I can only go by the structure plan and the local plans that have been produced and consulted on to date. By the end of the structure plan period, we reckon that roughly 50 houses will be completed. Beyond the existing structure plan period, another 80 houses will be built in the period from 2011 to 2030. By no stretch of the imagination is that a large development. However, the situation could change if there were a station at Stow.
If I may, I will add a couple of technical points of clarification, the first of which is on the issue of radius. We never said that that was the main reason for the railway not going to Stow. The main reason for not doing so is the economic case against having a stop at Stow. We support the possibility of getting a station on a derogation or, as Bruce Rutherford said, elsewhere in the area. What was said this morning is that we would support the proposal and that we could get around the problem. We tried to produce a compliant proposal. We do not want anyone to say that the question of the station is a massive hindrance.
Reliability is only part of the argument. Last week, we heard from Homes for Scotland that it would have real difficulty if it were to try to sell someone a journey-to-work time of just under an hour when the journey time that we are talking about is an hour not from when someone leaves their house but from when they get on the train. Speed is important. A service may be reliable, but if it is an hour-long service that nobody wants, it does not matter how reliable it is—passengers will not use it. Obviously, if the service is reliable and quick, the operator will get the patronage that is needed to make the railway viable. Reliability is not the only factor that you should be looking for.
Of course. Reliability and speed are two factors. On speed, it is clear that many people in Scotland have hour-long journeys by train. Some big settlements are comfortably an hour from Edinburgh and Glasgow. Therefore, I would not support the idea that demand will not be generated for a journey that takes an hour.
The Stow issue interests me. I understood what you said about having a longer double track and the dynamic route instead of the static loop, but it has been said that a lot of money could be saved—it costs a lot to put down a railway line. Lines could be shortened. The station could be built and the cost of doing so would be more than covered by putting down less rail track. That was one issue.
Yes. In my opening statement, I said that we had always looked at operations, infrastructure and demand and that there are always trade-offs. The loop could be shortened and money could be saved. However, if money is saved, reliability would be considerably decreased—that is the trade-off. Everything that we have done in the round of meetings with Network Rail and ScotRail looks to lengthen the routes, as reliability is being sought.
Leaving aside whether we agree about the figures, you seem to accept that building a station later on a live railway would turn out to be much more expensive.
That is indeed the case. Again, the promoter's view is that it is unfortunate for Stow that we are where we are.
Obviously, there is a dispute about the suggested take-up of 10 passengers per day from Stow. The Stow station supporters have suggested at least four things that might change that, which interest me. One is that you have not taken into account the fact that Lauder, which is only 5 miles over the hill, is expanding and a bus service could link to it. Obviously, houses are going to be built there. On top of that, there is the potential for traffic going the other way. Stow is 25 minutes from Edinburgh and, apparently, some people like walking and they could go off and do such things.
We have. Dr Brown can answer on Stow. On Gala, my colleague Mr Rutherford, who has far greater knowledge of the streets of Galashiels than I do, will explain that, although no parking is provided for the station per se, there are a number of parking options for residents of north Gala, most of whom—even with a road journey—have to go south to come north.
There are four car parks within 150yd of the station. One of them, with around 36 spaces, takes about six cars a day for that purpose. The other three are quite heavily used within the pay-and-display system. About 70 per cent of people walk to the station. The demand in Gala is for 50 spaces and few cars use the station—there is plenty capacity within 150m of the station. If any cars are displaced from the nearby car parks, they can use the new car park at Currie Road that the council is building, which is about 500m from the station. None of those figures includes any of the on-street spaces that are available in Gala. In conclusion, we suggest that there is plenty capacity to take 50 cars per day on the streets, in existing car parks or in the new car park that the council is building.
In estimating potential demand from Stow, we made the same assumptions about demand decaying with distance from the station as we made for other stations on the network, which resulted in our headline figure of about 10 passengers a day using Stow station. If we relax those assumptions and take a much more optimistic view, we get something in the range of 10 to 30 passengers a day.
I asked the previous witnesses about journeys from Galashiels to the Gorebridge area, because it dawned on me that the impact on such journeys was an obvious downside to their proposal. They answered that almost no one wants to make those journeys. Where do your figures come from? Do they refer to people who travel to work? We have heard different evidence.
The extensive demand modelling that we undertook indicated that there is a small but significant demand for intermediate journeys on the line, for example from Galashiels and Tweedbank in the Borders to Newtongrange—where we are today—Eskbank and Gorebridge. Those are small but fairly significant settlements and it should come as no surprise that settlements that have a population of several thousand should generate a few dozen tips per day, as is forecasted and as bus operators can confirm. If fast services were run from the Borders to Edinburgh, those trips would be lost and far more passengers would be lost than the number of passengers who would use a train from a station at Stow. It is unfortunate, but it is a hard fact of life.
Would it be possible to run alternate fast and slow services? We have been talking about running services from Tweedbank and Galashiels right through to Edinburgh or running very slow services, but I have travelled on railway lines on which the train that departed on the hour stopped everywhere and the train that departed on the half hour went right through.
There are obviously options to do that on railway lines in Scotland. However, we stress that the crux of the matter is capacity on the railway lines at the Edinburgh end. We heard mention today of a fourth path, which took us by surprise, although it is mentioned in the Waverley Route Trust's report. Our proposal would extend the existing services to avoid taking more capacity on the east coast main line, in the interests of economy. We are therefore trying to serve as much as we can with two paths. The trust's hourly service would take a third path on the east coast main line, which would come at a cost premium, because Network Rail could sell the path to intercity services. We are not sure whether those extra costs have been taken into account. Clearly, if there was an hourly service with a half-hourly service at peak times, the fourth path—and I have not spoken to anyone in the industry who believes that the fourth path exists—
What does the term "path" mean?
Sorry. When we talk about the number of trains per hour, we say "paths per hour", for which time in the timetable is needed. We propose to extend the existing service, so we are not asking for any extra capacity on the section between Newcraighall and Waverley. The trust wants one more path and two paths during the peak period. It would be difficult to change that pattern without inconveniencing others, just by using the two paths that we propose. If, as we say, the difference in headline journey time between like for like—ours and the trust's—is only 10 minutes, I suspect that that would not make much difference. Mark Brown will back me up on that.
I stress that the promoter's proposal is for a railway service with two trains per hour between all stations and Edinburgh. The alternative proposal is for just one train per hour from Stow, Galashiels and Tweedbank. There are two key factors in relation to demand on the line: reliability, which Keith Wallace talked about, and frequency. The half-hourly frequency of service to the Borders is attractive to bus passengers and car passengers and the provision of just one train per hour would not be sufficient to attract the majority of forecast passengers to rail.
Do you accept that on many of the existing commuter lines only one train runs per hour, with greater capacity only at peak hours?
Yes, and the demand on those lines reflects that. The demand on the North Berwick line is around half what has been forecast for the Waverley line. Frequency is critical, particularly when the journey takes 50 minutes or an hour, which is the situation that we are considering. If there is only one train per hour, the potential cost of missing the train is very high.
I thought that I was the only one who makes several attempts to get to the railway station but goes back for things.
Bruce Rutherford will go through the history of the building of the case. When we started the process, we considered the key objectives, which I mentioned. Those are accessibility, social inclusion and regenerating the Borders. The main conclusion of the first study was that only rail could make the difference in achieving those objectives. Although that study was done before the STAG appraisal, we had identified objectives and we had established a range of solutions. From that point on, we wanted a scheme that met those objectives, which has been the promoter's main thrust.
The other point is that we recognised early that if the railway only went to Gorebridge there would be two contracts. The second stage would require a second contract. It would be far more expensive to run with two contracts, especially if there was a gap between them; the second contract would cost far more.
It is a recognised contracting habit, given the timescales that are involved in large public procurement contracts, that there is always the potential to extend an existing contract. Was that option examined?
I will pass that to my colleague.
We ran a sensitivity test in which we did as Christine May suggests. In the test we built a railway to Gorebridge, ran it for five years and extended the railway to Tweedbank. Christine May will recall that the net present value of the promoter's central case is £75.3 million. To build the line to Gorebridge and never extend it would give a net present value of just over £100 million, which is a small but reasonably significant improvement.
In response to Margaret Smith, you said that the lines to Melrose and Stow would form a second phase that you could come back to in the future. However, in response to Christine May's questions about why the railway should not just stop at Gorebridge, you said that you had to go the whole length because this is a one-off and that if it is not done there will not be another chance. The reason why committee members have been jumping about is because those responses appear to be contradictory. Will you explain why, if this is a one-off opportunity and if the line is to go beyond Gorebridge, you will not take it through Melrose and stop at Stow?
It is a matter of scale. Hundreds of thousands of trips will be made annually from the Borders to Midlothian and Edinburgh, and any benefits from them will be lost over five years. However, only a few hundred—maybe a few thousand—trips will be made from Stow. At the moment, there is a clear economic and business case that developing the Borders railway will have wider economic benefits. However, the longer the project is left, the worse that case becomes.
I share the convener's incredulity at what seem to be different answers to the questions. Indeed, the responses appear to be in direct conflict with each other.
Let me be clear about Stow. I can see absolutely no case at the moment for having a station at Stow. Demand is not great enough and more people would be deterred from using the train from Galashiels and Tweedbank than would use the station at Stow.
Would that be the case even were one to take into account the catchment area of Lauder, Clovenfords and round about and the potential development in those areas?
Yes—that would be so even if one relaxed all the assumptions that one could possibly make and even if one assumed that a number of new houses would be developed there. I remind the committee that the proposal to stop trains at Stow would involve reducing frequency to one train an hour and not stopping Borders trains at Eskbank, Gorebridge or Newtongrange. Fifty passengers a day would be lost to the railway as a result of that, while we forecast only 10 would, to begin with, come from Stow. Even if we are five passengers out in our forecast, for every passenger that we would gain, we would lose a passenger. That is before one even starts to pay for the operating costs and the return on capital for building a station. The case for building a station at Stow is very weak. I take a hard-headed economic business case view and cannot currently find any rationale—social, economic or business—for recommending a station at Stow.
Do you foresee any economic case in the future?
I do not.
On a point of clarification, Mr Wallace referred earlier to a ScotRail letter that arrived so late in the day that committee members did not have a chance to see it, but I have asked to have a look at it. Will you confirm whether you are saying that the Waverley Route Trust proposals ignore the rules of the plan?
Yes. We have confirmed that clearly by comparing details of the report with the plan.
Okay. Your letter to ScotRail asks for its views; it does not ask it to comment on the trust's plans.
We had some debate with ScotRail on some of the detail and the question that was framed was; "We have deduced that the rules of the plan have not been followed. What would be your view if someone made a proposal in which the rules of the plan were not followed?"
It was your view that the rules had not been followed.
I can say that categorically and I can confirm where the plan has not been followed. I refer members to the timetables in the trust's report; for example, dwell times at stations, which are the times that the train stops at the station, are shown as being 30 seconds, but the rules in the plan say 60 seconds. Indeed, for Stow, the dwell time is given as only 20 seconds, so right away, one minute and 40 seconds are not included in the trust's report.
I am trying to get my head round this and to be absolutely clear about who will benefit from the proposed railway line. Many of us believed that the proposal was about getting a railway line back to open up the Borders and to improve its economy, which was to be a win-win situation for the Borders. You have moved from that ambition to there being only two stations in the Borders—one at Galashiels and one at Tweedbank, which is just a couple of miles further down the road. That would be the benefit.
That is indeed what we are saying. As was mentioned this morning, Stow is, of the options that have been considered, the least attractive location for a station. Under the current plans, we could not fit in another station. At this stage, I am right. I support Mark Brown's view, which is that there is not a case for a station at Stow.
The fact is that more than 20,000 people live in the railway's central Borders catchment area, which will be served by stations at Tweedbank and Galashiels. There are plans to build more than 5,000 new homes; that will bring another 10,000 people into that catchment. Only about 600 people live in Stow. As Stow will not have a station, its residents might lose out. Trains will not travel through the heart of the village because the railway line is some way away. Although Stow inhabitants will not benefit from the new stations to as great an extent as others will, the vast majority of people in the central Borders—tens of thousands of people—will benefit.
I have two questions. As I understand it, in answer to Margaret Smith—perhaps you were responding to the convener—you stated clearly that you could envisage no conditions under which the case for Stow would change. In other words, it is not true to say that you could come back to us later because, in your view, there will not be a change.
I am speaking as an economist, not as an engineer. From an engineering point of view, it may be possible to build a station at Stow later. However, as the economist who was responsible for making the business case and for providing data for the revenue case and the wider economic analysis, my view is that the case for Stow is very weak and that there is little evidence that there will be any significant level of new development in the village. Deprivation or poverty can provide an argument for having a station, but I have seen no evidence of major deprivation or poverty in Stow. I cannot envisage any circumstances in which demand or revenue would be anywhere near sufficient to make a station at Stow viable. All the cases that I have considered suggest that far more travellers would experience a disbenefit as a result of there being a station at Stow than would benefit from it. The case for having a station at Stow is extremely poor.
That deals with the economic case. I am grateful to you for that clarification. However, the argument for the rest of the Borders is based not just on economics—if it were to be based solely on economics, the case for having a railway would probably not stack up—but on the need to reduce social exclusion. Why, in that case, is it appropriate to use the social exclusion justification in the case of Galashiels, but to use a purely economic justification in the case of Stow?
First, there is a purely economic case as well as a wider case for the Borders railway. The scheme has a net present value of £75.3 million, which suggests that there is an economic case. However, there are also major socioeconomic benefits—the £66 million to the Borders that has previously been identified—which have currency because they reflect the preferences of the local authorities in the Borders for social and economic regeneration. It is because the public authorities have expressed a preference for social and economic regeneration and for tackling social exclusion that those wider social and economic benefits have currency. It is therefore the ability of the railway infrastructure to match and support wider policy aspirations that underpins the wider social and economic benefits.
You referred to the difference between what the Waverley Route Trust is suggesting and what you believe is achievable and you referred to the studies that you have done on that. Will you send the comparisons to the clerks so that we can examine the figures?
On the first point, we are happy to tidy up the work that we have done and issued to the committee on run times. We have a little bit of work to do, but we will get that to you in conjunction with the letter from ScotRail.
Christine May put a question to Mr Spaven about the bill's limits and we talked about tweaking the bill. At the meeting with the WRT on 3 December, we discussed the limits and what could be accommodated with the WRT proposals.
At the meeting in December, the promoter's agents gave advice to the trust on what was included in the bill. The meeting went on for the best part of a day.
Would you seek a contribution from Network Rail, or would Network Rail seek a contribution from the promoter, to carry out additional works on the land which, I presume, Network Rail owns? Does Network Rail have any money for that?
We should detach our promoted scheme from the WRT's scheme. Our scheme does not rely on work between Newcraighall and Portobello, but the WRT's scheme does. We do not need a contribution from Network Rail for the scheme that we have promoted and which is before the committee. The WRT would have to have detailed discussions with Network Rail to get a commitment on PDR works and on any financial contribution.
I will save my other questions on the issue for Network Rail.
I would like to clarify the issue about the limits of deviation at Newcraighall, not in the section between Newcraighall and Portobello junction. Could the proposals for Newcraighall be accommodated within the bill as it stands?
The WRT proposals mention a couple of locations where speed improvements and adjustments of the line would benefit the speed profile. Given that our scheme involves a stop at Newcraighall station, trains would be decelerating or accelerating at that point. Therefore the seconds of benefit that would be gained from the proposed adjustments would be lost because trains would stop at the station. The WRT proposes that the line should bypass Newcraighall station. Therefore, the realignment would be required for the WRT scheme, but not for ours. A departure from the bill would probably be required to accommodate the WRT proposals for that part of the line.
I appreciate that we are talking about the WRT scheme rather than your scheme, but it would be useful if you itemised your views on whether the WRT suggestions would require deviations from the bill. I presume that you are saying that a number of the proposals would be outwith the scope of the bill.
This morning, the committee discussed the entire Melrose section, which would obviously be outwith the bill. I mentioned the Newcraighall section, which was not discussed this morning. We could prepare a summary of where the WRT proposals would require departures from the bill.
Did you undertake STAG 1 appraisals with respect to the alternative options that were considered originally and, if so, what were the results?
Could you ask that question of the next panel of witnesses? My colleague Mr Webster can discuss that process better than I can.
Okay. He now has advance notice of the question.
He is preparing as we speak.
He has a chance to think about the question. We will test him on it afterwards.
I am afraid that he is used to that.
Are you absolutely confident that your proposals represent the best technical and financial solution to the creation of a viable Borders rail link?
Yes.
That was easy.
The source was the promoter's model, which has been used to run a variety of sensitivity tests; for example, on stopping the railway at Gorebridge or on stopping it there and then extending it five years later. We also ran a number of permutations of the Corus option through our model, which backed up the point that Mr Wallace has just made about value for money.
Are those figures in the business case or are they separate?
We did that work separately and recently, as other options arose.
Will you make the figures available to the clerk as soon as possible?
Certainly.
I thank the witnesses for their evidence. We will now have a break of 10 minutes, after which we will hear from a panel that will consist of Douglas Muir, Andrew McCracken, Bruce Rutherford, Mark Brown and David Webster.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
We will now consider how the railway would integrate with other modes of transport. I understand that Douglas Muir wishes to make a short opening statement.
Transport integration to improve accessibility has been a key objective of both local and national Government for many years. STAG states:
Good afternoon, gentlemen. You have really done away with my first question, which was about how you would integrate with various feeder bus services and so on. You have given us some information on that.
We have had a number of meetings with Lothian Buses and FirstGroup—the two major bus operators in the area. The station sites were specifically chosen so that they met existing bus service patterns. Although we are considering feeder services, we would basically be using the existing bus network to feed the rail services. For instance, in Gorebridge, services 3 and 86 run past the station site about every five minutes, so there is good integration. At Eskbank station, a large number of buses come into Tesco. People will be able to interchange directly. In a moment, my colleague from Scottish Borders Council will explain some of the sites in the Borders.
I will talk about Galashiels first. Earlier, we talked about feeder buses. There are actually 212 buses that currently go to the bus station at Galashiels, which is directly opposite the site of the new railway station. It is only across the road. As a result, you have instant integration between the rail station and the bus station, and you have only to cross the bridge over the river to get to the shops and the two sets of main streets in Gala.
Have you considered the option of a bus quality partnership or quality contract to provide some form of regulation of the bus market, following the potential reopening of the Waverley line?
We have not considered it as part of this project. However, last year Midlothian Council considered introducing a bus quality contract for Midlothian. We employed Steer Davies Gleave to do some work for us, and it produced a report. As I recall, the report concluded that it would be extremely difficult for Midlothian Council to introduce a bus quality contract, for two main reasons.
Would Bruce Rutherford give the same answer in relation to Galashiels and Tweedbank in the Borders?
Yes. Douglas Muir has already touched on the discussions that have taken place. We have spoken to Lothian Buses, which runs services mainly in Midlothian. However, we chanced our arm by speaking to the company about the potential for Scottish Borders Council to have contracts with it. In December and January, we also had discussions with FirstGroup. Those discussions may lead to partnership contracts in the future, but four years is a long time in the bus service world and at this stage it is difficult to predict what the final outcome of negotiations with the companies involved will be. However, we are not discounting the option.
Do you think that it will be easier and cheaper to introduce bus quality contracts once the regional transport partnerships are up and running?
It depends on what functions are transferred to the regional transport partnerships. We are not sure how they will pan out. There is much debate locally about what functions should be kept at local level, for maximum benefit, and what functions it would be beneficial to pass to national level, to get more leverage on issues about which we are vexed at the moment.
At the moment we are not even 100 per cent sure that Midlothian Council and Scottish Borders Council will be in the same partnership, although we think that they will.
I will be picky, if I may. There are a number of proposed station car parks. Is the parking space capacity sufficient? How has that figure been calculated? The worry is that restraining the potential for park and ride will limit the value of the line and the amount of patronage that it can receive from the widely dispersed population.
I will deal with the Midlothian facilities and Bruce Rutherford will speak about the Borders facilities. The station sites were carefully chosen—we made the best choices that we could. Gorebridge is probably the most constrained, as we have very little land there. It will be difficult to extend Gorebridge park-and-ride site. Newtongrange is slightly different. It is a small site, but as housing developments pick up around it there will be a need to extend the car park. A fair bit of land is available on the opposite side of the railway line, which would allow expansion of the Newtongrange park and ride.
Like Douglas Muir, we have plenty of spaces available for the 2017 demand. The strategic park-and-ride site at Tweedbank is large and we think that it could be doubled in size in future years, if necessary. Within the limits of deviation, there is plenty of land there for us to build on if we need to.
Have factors such as taxis, cars dropping people off or waiting to collect people and so on been considered? I am being picky, but I want to ensure that we have all of those wee things covered.
Again, there is sufficient capacity in the station sites for taxi drop-off ranks. We are keen to explore that with the taxi operators but it is a bit early for that. The question is whether we can get direct links with a taxi office in Galashiels. There should be a telephone that you can use to order a taxi.
I should have asked the promoter this question long ago and I apologise for the fact that I am doing it at the tail-end of the process. You talk about the location of stations and park-and-ride facilities, but have you acquired all the land that you need? Have you considered whether compulsory purchases might have to be made? What have you done about that? Is everything done and dusted? If you get the go-ahead, can you start building immediately?
Yes. The bill will give us all the compulsory purchase powers that we need in order to build the scheme that is before you.
Have you acquired any other land that you need?
We consider that everything is within the bill, within the limits of deviation or within the limits of land acquired or used, which we have applied for—unless anyone has spotted anything else.
An issue that I have identified relates to an attempt to enhance the railway with cycle paths or walking facilities. In that regard, both councils have sat down and tried to find an alternative to the black pass, which we have often referred to. Most of the community relies on the black pass but certain parts of Midlothian and the Galashiels area will be severed from it. We have been trying to find alternative paths in the councils' areas.
So any compulsory purchase will have to wait until after the bill gets the go-ahead.
It is a chicken and egg situation. The council will not certify that it has the land, but if the committee gave us a positive steer on the general principles, we would start to make inquiries about buying land for projects outwith what is proposed in the bill.
I am not sure that it is within the committee's remit to do that.
I have a question for Mr Webster about which he has, no doubt, been thinking for a long time and hoping that I had not forgotten. Were any STAG 1 appraisals undertaken on any of the other options that were originally considered? If so, what were the results?
I will put the answer to that question into perspective. The alternatives to a rail line were investigated as part of the Scottish Borders railway feasibility study that we undertook in 1999 and reported early in 2000. STAG was not published until July 2001, so the decision to proceed with a railway line was made before STAG. However, the procedure that we followed was very STAG-like in that it was a best-practice approach. I believe that, even before Scott Wilson Scotland became involved, an economic development study of the Borders was done—Bruce Rutherford will be able to confirm that. That study recommended improvements to the transport links as one of the ways of solving the Borders' economic problems, and that is what spurred the Scottish Borders railway feasibility study.
Thank you for your response. I thank you all for coming and giving evidence. We will now hear from our final group of witnesses for the day on the viability of the Borders-Edinburgh bus service. The witnesses are Bruce Rutherford, Douglas Muir, Dr Mark Brown and David Webster. There is no need to suspend the meeting to change witnesses, because most of the previous witnesses are staying at the table. I ask Bruce Rutherford to make a short opening statement.
Thank you, convener. I will keep it short.
Thank you.
Good afternoon again. This morning, you may well have heard the witness from FirstGroup indicate that the company has done some modelling that was based on patronage levels and the potential viability of routes. My impression is that that information was not shared with you. Were you surprised to hear about it?
Yes, I was surprised to hear about it, as it has come quite early in the cycle of integrating rail and bus services. FirstGroup may have had a quick look at the position, possibly working from the figures that we put forward. In the discussions that we have had with the company over the past month or two, it is obvious that it has read some of the documents that we submitted to the committee. FirstGroup may well have done that, but I was surprised that it has done so quite so early in the process.
As a member of the previous panel, you said that you had done a reverse STAG and had taken another look at the issue. I return to a point I made earlier about the need to look at bus services in the widest sense and not only at those on the strategic routes. To do so would include all the inter-village services, for example. Does the modelling that you have done show that the impact on bus services of the reopening of the line is negative or positive?
I will hand over to Dr Mark Brown on that question. Basically, we looked at the revenue that will be lost on the A7 corridor, on which everyone seems to be focusing. We also looked at the feeder bus services, which are an uplift, and at the bus routes that will flow from the need to serve the additional housing in Midlothian and the Borders, which are also an uplift. We are happy to give the committee the overall position.
Once demand has ramped up on the railway, the transfer from bus to rail will mean that around 950,000 fewer bus trips will be made. As the average bus fare happens to be about £1, we approximate that a loss of around £950,000 will result. However, about £250,000 of revenue will result from the feeder bus trips. I am referring to the 16 to 17 per cent of rail passengers who will access a station every day by bus. Some compensation will result from those bus feeder services.
I would like to ask the local authorities whether, in the period between the reduced demand for buses among existing passengers and the new housing coming on stream, or in the event of the new housing not coming on stream to the same extent or as quickly as has been modelled, they would be prepared to pick up the shortfall to support the bus operators. In my experience, the local authority is the first place they go to.
You are quite correct.
And the only place they go to.
Generally speaking, that is something we face all the time. At one point, a few years ago, during the now famous bus wars in Edinburgh, Midlothian services were decimated. We had great difficulty reorganising services to plug the gaps. I am glad to say that those days are behind us—I hope for ever—and that we are in a much more stable market.
I would like to press you a little on that, because it adds in another revenue uncertainty. Given that there are now 10-year area infrastructure development plans and three to five-year modelling for revenue budgets, you are looking at transportation costs—including the costs of rolling out concessionary fares for buses—that could mean that there is less available for other transportation projects. You keep saying that it is early days, but I would expect sensible forward financial planning to include some guesses at those figures and the impact they might have. Have you done that?
As Mark Brown said, we consider that the transfer between rail and bus will equal itself out. You are correct to say that if the housing slows down a bit or if the railway is a bit late happening, a variety of factors could come into play. It is difficult to see how we can financially forecast that and make provision for it in our council budgets. We are running on three-year budgets at the moment. It is difficult to budget now for something that is beyond our three-year budget.
I accept that that is difficult to do. Nevertheless, this is a major project for which the revenue costs will be considerable, and the balance of those revenue costs is quite fine. If there is a shortfall in one element and you then add in the bus element, contingencies will have to be built in somewhere, sooner rather than later.
I hope that I can give you some comfort on that point. The 10,000 houses that we always talk about will be built over the life of the structure plan. Some of the houses have been built and some of what we were uncertain about in our dealings with the bus companies has happened. In the Borders there has been a drawing in of FirstGroup's operations, but the situation has now stabilised. We dealt with it almost instantaneously, because Scottish Borders Council saw it as a priority as it affected so many people in the area.
I have two quick questions. First, of the 10,000 houses that have been built, for how many did you get your £1,500 premium?
In the Borders we started taking the £1,500 in November last year. Last week you had the opportunity to ask my planning colleagues for exactly how many houses we had taken the £1,500.
And I did not take that opportunity, but I am sure that I can revisit the issue.
Yes. Dr Mark Brown said that a lot of the feeder services already exist, but we will need to co-ordinate the timetables. Some of the towns and villages around the stations might end up with a better service because of that co-ordination—although they might end up slightly worse off. Bus service regularity has improved in our area. Something like 70 per cent of people in the Borders are within six minutes of a bus stop. That is a high proportion, which we are building up gradually as best we can. We can count on the fingers of one hand the number of buses a day that some rural services run, but we are trying to improve that situation where possible.
The principal bus route that would be affected by the new rail service is the X95 route between Edinburgh and Carlisle via Galashiels and Hawick. What proportion of passengers is expected to transfer from that service to the rail service?
I can give you a broad figure on that. On the A7 corridor there will be a net positive impact on buses, in that there will be fewer diversions from bus to rail than there will be passengers generated on the feeder services. We estimate that there will be 93,000 fewer trips per year on the A7 corridor and supporting corridors and 120,000 additional bus feeder service trips. There will be a surplus of about 25,000 trips on the corridor in the Borders. That is an example of a win-win situation. Not only will there be a transfer from bus to rail but in that process more bus passengers will be generated. The A7 corridor in the Borders should not see a reduction in bus passengers or, one assumes, in bus services.
I suppose that my point is the one that Christine May raised. It is really about the individual villages. You cannot guarantee that particular villages will not lose bus services, although you are saying that the strategic picture around the A7 corridor is positive.
That is correct if we assume a rational response from the bus operators, and all our dealings suggest that a rational and professional attitude is being taken. From a revenue point of view, a case does not seem to have been made for reducing bus services, and a case could be made for increasing them.
How would the railway improve public transport links between key centres in the Borders?
That is very much a question of integration. Apart from the 50 per cent of passengers who would walk to a station, the key is a park and ride at Tweedbank, which would have a catchment area of the Borders towns to the railway's east, south and west. The location of the park and ride is excellent. Capacity is adequate for projected demand and the size of the facility can be significantly increased if required.
I thank all the witnesses for attending. That concludes our evidence taking. I thank in particular the Scottish Mining Museum's staff for their assistance with the meeting, for their hospitality and not least for the wonderful soup that we had at lunch time.
Meeting closed at 15:52.