Chamber and committees

There is no specific provision in planning legislation which provides the Scottish Ministers with the power to revoke a direction to call-in a planning application or notice of intention to develop. Accordingly, no such directions have been revoked during the period since May 1997.However, in the light of a recently issued court judgement relating to an English planning application (Trustees of the Friends of the Lake District v Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions: 26 March 2001 Ref: CO/4008/2000) it is now recognised that, in certain circumstances, it may be possible to revoke such directions, provided there are compelling and justifiable reasons for doing so.

The Scottish Executive retains responsibility for maintenance and replacement costs for all street lighting on trunk roads. Negotiations will commence very soon with the local authorities on the nature and scope of the work required, including the appropriate sharing of costs, where trunk road lighting shares electrical circuits or supplies with local road lighting and where such circuits require maintenance or replacement. The Scottish Executive will continue to pay the cost of the electricity supply directly based on an inventory of trunk road lighting.

My answer to question S1W-14599 set out the Executive's planned expenditure on the motorway and trunk road network 2001-02 to 2005-06. The proposed Aberdeen western peripheral is not a trunk road. On 14 March I announced a £1.25 million package of support to help the North East Scotland Economic Development Partnership to advance their proposed Modern Transport System, which includes the western peripheral.

The Scottish Executive has issued no directions regarding irradiated particles.The Secretary of State for Scotland wrote to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) in 1998 asking it to ensure that there was sufficient monitoring at Sandside Beach, near Dounreay, such that any particles on the beach were promptly detected and removed. SEPA has required the operators of Dounreay, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), to carry out monthly monitoring of the whole beach and to notify SEPA of any particles found. The monitoring programme continues.The possible mechanisms by which the particles arrive at the beach are being investigated by UKAEA. This investigation is subject to scrutiny by the independent Dounreay Particles Advisory Group (DPAG) which was set up to provide independent scientific advice to SEPA and UKAEA on the particles of irradiated nuclear fuel found in the marine environment around Dounreay. The interim DPAG report is available on the SEPA website at the following address:(http://www.sepa.org.uk/regs_licence/radioactivity/dpag/dpaghome.htm).

The Scottish Executive retains responsibility for all maintenance and repair costs for traffic signal installations at intersections of trunk roads and local authority roads. Where such signal installations are linked to local authority control rooms as part of a wider system of traffic control within urban areas, agreement has been reached with the local authorities to pay a proportionate cost for the operation of the system.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Government and the devolved administrations, together with the supporting Concordats between the Scottish Executive and Whitehall Departments, provide for communication and consultation between the Executive and the UK Government on all issues where actions taken by one administration may have a bearing on the responsibilities of the other. This would enable the Executive to consider the planning implications for Scotland of any proposals for UK-wide infrastructure initiatives and policy changes. The implications can be brought to the attention of the Scottish Parliament as necessary and its views can be taken into account before the Executive makes its input to policy formulation. Public consultation may be conducted on a UK basis or separately in Scotland by the Executive as appropriate.

In response to representations from MSPs, Highland Council and others last year, I asked officials to explore the possibility of ending date stamping of books of discount vouchers for Skye Bridge. Following discussions, the Concessionaire, Skye Bridge Limited, have made it clear that they are not willing to change the present arrangements. The discount vouchers already offer generous benefits to frequent users of the bridge, most of whom are local people, but I will discuss this matter further with the company later this year.

Accommodation costs for the period requested are set out in table 1 (actual costs for 1999-2000 and 2000-01 and projected costs for the subsequent years).Table 1: Accommodation Costs (£ million)

	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Costs: Cash Basis	34.484	32.938	33.939	27.858	27.858
Costs: Real Terms 1999-2000 prices	34.484	32.371	32.542	26.060	25.424

Accommodation costs include capital expenditure, rent, rates and other charges relating to property, the cost of accommodation-related staff and services such as maintenance (reactive and planned preventative), security, cleaning and fuel and utility costs.Non-recurring maintenance expenditure is set out in table 2. This includes planned decorative work, planned replacements and upgrading of equipment such as fire alarms and heating controls. The figures do not include reactive maintenance. The cost of non-recurring maintenance is incorporated within the figures in table 1.Table 2: Non Recurring Maintenance Expenditure (£ million)

	1999-2000	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Costs: Cash Basis	0.408	0.630	0.888	0.997	0.608
Costs: Real Terms 1999-2000 prices	0.408	0.619	0.851	0.933	0.555

Plans for non-recurring maintenance are adjusted each year as condition surveys are received from consultants. There are no current plans for a major maintenance project post 2004.

The Parliament's accommodation costs (i.e. rent, rates, utilities and building maintenance) for 1999-2000 and 2000-01, and the equivalent budgeted figure for 2001-02, are shown below expressed in cash terms. The projected costs for subsequent years are still under discussion. Those for 2002-03 will be included in the level 2 figures due to be submitted to the Finance Committee in September.

1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02£2,118,000 £2,768,000 £3,060,000

The nature and extent of the proposed Public/Private Partnership and the extent of the contract have not been finalised, but will take into account matters raised by the Audit Committee in relation to the M74 contract.It is intended that the M77 Fenwick to Malletsheugh trunk road scheme and the local authority Glasgow Southern Orbital proposal would be procured as a single Public/Private Partnership depending on the outcome of the recent Public Local Inquiry into the Southern Orbital.