Chamber and committees

We are investing £40 millionin the trunk road infrastructure in North Ayrshire including the completed A78“Three Towns Bypass” (Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenson), four improvements schemeson the A737 and a study of the traffic problems affecting Dalry which will feedinto the Strategic Transport Projects Review.

On rail we have an aspirationto lengthen trains to Ayrshire, including Prestwick Airport and to operate an additional hourly service on the Ayr route.

Future options for investmentin the trunk road and rail network will be considered as part of the Strategic TransportProjects Review which is examining the needs of the national strategic transportcorridors throughout Scotland. The review is due to report in summer 2008.

The information requested isnot available. Estimates and projections of the economic benefits of the schemehave been made based on new jobs created to the area during the construction andfollowing completion of the M74 and benefits to users of the road network.I refer the member to the answer to question S3W-64 on 1 June 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are availableon the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

We expect the M74 Completionscheme to be complete and open to traffic in 2011.

One of our central prioritiesis to support Scotland’s economic growth. We have already made clear that oneof the ways in which we will do so is by removing or reducing the burden of businessrates for small businesses, many of which are located in traditional town centresacross Scotland. We will announce further measures in due course.

The Litter Act 1958 was repealedby the Litter Act 1983. Prosecutions for littering offences are generally underthe Environmental Protection Act 1990. The available information for persons proceededagainst for littering offences under the 1990 act is given in the table.

Persons Proceeded against inScottish Courts for Littering Offences Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990,2003-04 to 2005-06.

Year	Number
2003-04	28
2004-05	43
2005-06	32

Note: 1. Where main offence.

The available information onthe number of persons proceeded against for dog fouling is given in the followingtable.

Persons Proceededagainst in Scottish Courts for Offences Under the Dog Fouling (Scotland) Act 2003¹, 2002-03 to 2005-06

Year	Number
2004-05	8
2005-06	8

Note: 1. Where mainoffence.

The Scottish Executive does nothave an estimated date for this. Homelessness legislation introduced standards which temporary accommodation for householdswith children and pregnant women must meet and prohibits routine use of B&Bsand other unsuitable accommodation for these households.

The Scottish Executive hasbeen working with Irvine Bay Urban Regeneration Company (URC) and localpartners, including North Ayrshire Council, Communities Scotland and ScottishEnterprise Ayrshire, to assist in the development of comprehensive regenerationproposals for the Irvine Bay area of North Ayrshire, which covers the town of Ardrossan. IrvineBay URC will be submitting a finalised business plan to the Executive in June2007 for consideration. Decisions on any future investment by the Executivewill be taken in that context.

The Scottish Executive recognisesthat images of smokers featured in films, TV and magazines may influence young peopleto smoke. In developing our longer term national smoking prevention strategy, therefore,we will work with the UK Government and other devolved governments to explore waysto reduce positive and increase negative images of smoking in the media. It doesnot seem unreasonable for issues relating to film classification to form part ofthese considerations.

The information requested isnot held centrally at this time. Changes to the homelessness statistics data collectionsystem, introduced from April 2007, allow councils to identify applicants from themost recent EU accession states. The first annual statistics on such applicants,for the year 2007-08, will be published during 2008.