Chamber and committees

The research being carried out by VisitScotland on the total value of golf tourism to Scotland will be published in January 2009.

Scotland already has a fantastic range and number of golf courses, old and new, hidden gems as well as the jewels in the crown like Turnberry, Muirfield and the Old Course. The challenge for those charged with increasing the benefits of golf tourism is to better utilise all of these existing courses. The “Greatest Golf Giveaway”, which is part of next year’s Homecoming programme, will aim to do that.

Ernst and Young LLP were engaged in October 2006 with a remit for financial elements including revenues and growth, fares and affordability, and options on the Scotrail franchise extension.

Brodies LLP were engaged in January of 2007 with a remit to consider legal, including contractual and procurement, issues around the franchise extension.

Additional material including work by both Ernst and Young and Brodies will be made available in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre and the Transport Scotland website.

The current programme of investment in the trunk road network is available on the Transport Scotland website at:

http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/files/documents/roads/Motorways-Trunk-Road-Programme-June2007-final.pdf.

While I cannot speak on behalf of previous administrations, the current programme was set out in my statement to Parliament on 27 June 2007. This can be found at:

http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/files/documents/roads/Motorways-Trunk-Road-Programme-June2007-final.pdf.

The Scottish Executive has no evidence that First ScotRail was attempting to reduce passenger numbers. Under the “cap and collar” arrangements of the original agreement the franchisee was disincentivised to continue to grow the business once the 80% revenue share was reached, and the expectation was that in order to maintain margins it would instead seek to reduce costs, thereby impacting negatively on passenger growth.

Scottish Government officials only became aware of a potential conflict subsequent to the Cairngorms National Park Authority granting planning permission on 11 January 2008. Attention was specifically drawn to the issue of conflict in correspondence from the developer dated 5 February 2008.

I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-13658 on 12 June 2008. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The agenda and supporting papers for the Cairngorms National Park Authority’s Planning Committee on 14 December 2007 were forwarded to officials on 7 December 2007. These were placed in the public domain by Cairngorms National Park Authority on 6 December 2007. The information was not specific to the Laurel Grant application and referred to a number of development applications which were to be considered by the Cairngorms National Park Authority.

The content of the email was made known to Scottish Government planning officials. The email was not relayed to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) or the Cairngorms National Park Authority. In response to representations received from several members of the Scottish Parliament, including the Minister for Community Safety acting in a constituency capacity, and from a member of the United Kingdom Parliament, the Environment Minister contacted the Scottish Environment Protection Agency on 7 December 2007 to ask if there were any misunderstandings or matters of process within SEPA that were unnecessarily delaying the agency’s consideration of the Aviemore Highland Resort’s planning applications. Any questions about the actions taken by SEPA or the Cairngorms National Park Authority should be directed to the respective Chief Executives.