Petition
Transport Strategies (PE1115)
The next agenda item is consideration of petition PE1115, by Caroline Moore, on behalf of the campaign to open Blackford railway station again—COBRA. The petition calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to ensure that national and regional transport strategies consider and focus on public transport solutions such as the reopening of Blackford railway station, which is identified as a priority action in the latest Tayside and central Scotland regional transport strategy and, in doing so, to recognise and support the positive environmental, economic and social impacts of such local solutions. I refer members to paper 5 and the attached briefing paper from the petitioners.
The briefing paper consists of a business case that the petitioners commissioned, which was provided to the Public Petitions Committee. I invite members to note that and the other representations from the petitioners, which were made available to Transport Scotland and the other bodies that the Public Petitions Committee invited to comment on the petition.
Transport Scotland’s position is that it has no plans to reopen Blackford station. It prefers to concentrate on making the best use of current stations before opening any additional ones.
Do members have comments on what we should do with the petition?
I have fond memories of Blackford, which was one of the few places on the trunk road network where there was a level crossing. It broke up many a journey in my youth. I note that the paper includes a list of elected representatives who have supported the campaign. I should pay particular attention, because Murdo Fraser must support it a great deal as he is listed twice.
I was involved, as the convener perhaps was, in the campaign to open a railway station in our back yard at Laurencekirk. That was a positive experience. The project came in ahead of schedule and under budget, and the figures that have been provided since then for the usage of that station have massively exceeded the predictions that were made before it was constructed.
That has been at the expense of some other stations on the line—that is the problem.
A couple of other proposals in the north-east are at various stages, such as the proposals for stations at Kintore and Newtonhill, and there are campaigns to progress those.
I would be interested to update my understanding of the general business case for such stations in order to inform both a decision on the petition and consideration of other proposals that might be made in the years to come.
I have a question about the procedure. We had a petition before that was then withdrawn. Is the information that we have been presented with all the information that there is?
Links were provided to all the material on the petition, which is hosted on the Public Petitions Committee’s web page. We tried to summarise the key points for members, from the perspective of both the petitioners and Transport Scotland.
Unlike Alex Johnstone, I have no memories, fond or otherwise, of Blackford. It is not a part of the world that I know particularly well.
At the outset, I should probably congratulate COBRA, because I am aware of its campaign. Members would not necessarily think that I would be aware of a campaign to reopen a station in a place that is not close to the area that I represent, so COBRA has clearly gone about its business assiduously. I am impressed by the work that it has put in; the business case that it has presented to us is certainly impressive.
However, I urge caution about our being willing to take the petition further as I am not sure what we can add to what the Public Petitions Committee has done thus far. Our responsibility is to consider transport on a strategic level. If we started to look at each and every local representation that was made, we would become very busy indeed. Alex Johnstone mentioned a couple of campaigns on his patch and I have campaigned for a railway station at Abronhill in my constituency—I might as well get that on the record. I wonder where it would end if we started to look at every proposal for a new railway station.
That said, I have a lot of sympathy with the petition. I understand that Transport Scotland’s position is that it does not want to create new stations and will instead try to get the best out of other stations, but I do not think that those two things are mutually exclusive, and there might be a case for new stations.
13:15
I urge caution about being too gung-ho in the way in which we take the petition forward. I am not saying that we should do nothing, but I am concerned that we should not get too involved in the detail of the arguments around the opening of a Blackford railway station—or a Kintore railway station, or the other one that Alex Johnstone mentioned but which I did not quite hear. I would be quite keen to get involved in discussions around an Abronhill railway station, but that would be a bit parochial of me.
There is also a petition to open a railway station at Newtonhill. When Laurencekirk station was opened, the number of stops at Portlethen station decreased, as did the number of passengers using that station. Adding numbers in one place decreased numbers elsewhere, as the operators do not want to increase the number of stops.
When I went to one of the rail consultation events that Transport Scotland has been holding around the country, I saw a good presentation about the usage of stations, which highlighted the fact that stations are often in the wrong place for the pattern of usage in the 21st century and so on. Perhaps we should consider the petition when we have representatives of Transport Scotland before us to discuss the rail 2014 consultation exercise. Would that be agreeable to the committee?
Members indicated agreement.