It is a truism in today’s “Blair’s World of Spin” that governments do not commission reports without first having predetermined the findings. This report has never been more so. The facts in “the report” are indeed very thin, and can be summarised in a few paragraphs.
Facts: there are up to 75,000 vehicles using the Forth Road Bridge every day and the annual growth in traffic is 2.5%. The bridge will close to vehicles over 3.5 tons in 2013 and to all traffic by 2018. The report highlights further problems that have not been widely published, such as the deterioration at the anchorages through hydrogen embrittlement for which there is no solution; this in itself could herald an earlier closure! The preferred option (PO) in the report is a multi modal suspension bridge with a span of 1375m adjacent to the existing Forth Road Bridge.
Fiction: the report talks about pegging back traffic to what was the 2002/2003 level of 66000 vehicles per day (vpd) and keeping it at this level for the foreseeable future (2022). By the time a bridge is started, at the earliest in 2012, at 2.5%. the traffic will have grown to 85,000 vpd.
The report uses a 2001 origin and destination survey that is now well out of date and is also misleading. The report ignores a study done in 2003 by FETA as part of their “Local Transport Stategy”. The figures from this study increase the traffic using the M8/M9 corridor by up to 300%, making the corridor West of Rosyth the preferred route. Up to date and dedicated surveys should be done before discounting any corridor.
In order to achieve these dramatic cuts in traffic the government will have to build a Ferry Toll facility every year from now until 2022 i.e. 14 new park and rides.
The report concludes that a tunnel would cost 2.4 times the PO. Faber Maunsell’s report (FMR) commissioned by FETA in 2004 put the price of the PO at £360-398m. This would have make the tunnel option in the report £865-971m. The current report is silent on the cost of the preferred option, but Tavish Scott says that the solution (one would assume the PO) will cost in excess of £1.0Bn.. This in itself begs more questions. Is the price for a tunnel now in excess of £2.4Bn? Is inflation running at 100% per annum? Are you confused? We think we are!
Fact: the “Setting Forth” study did preliminary site investigation in the area of the preferred option, there is no site investigation for Areas A, B, C and E.
Fiction: the report conjectures the rock head profile and proceeds to further conjecture the type of rock and sedimentary deposits, including the quality of the sediments and from these the length of spans for alternative bridge solutions and the gradients and profile of tunnels.
Let us look at Area C where Forthtag proposed an immersed tube tunnel. The area is adjacent to Ramsar areas on both shores. Here the report conjectures that the sediments “might” damage the Ramsar / SPA areas adjacent to the proposed site by depositing sediments and contaminants from past industrial processes. The report therefore concludes that a tunnel is not suitable for these reasons.
Ramsar and SPA’s exist along the line of the PO, but here the report recommends that the insurmountable problem that precluded an immersed tube can be dealt with taking mitigating measures.
Fact: an immersed tube tunnel is being built under the River Tyne in Newcastle in similar post industrialised sediments, and environmentally sensitive areas. The difference here being that a thorough site investigation was done and mitigating measures were taken which dealt with these problems.
Fiction: let us look at the tunnel solution proposed by the report for Area C. Here again the report suggests from its conjectured assumptions that there could be all sorts of geological problems for tunnelling including pressurised sand and gravel and mine working, dolerite dykes etc. These conjectured assumptions are not sound and should not be used to discount solutions, to do so would render the profession of Civil Engineer to one of “guestimation”. If any solution is to be discounted it should be done on a basis of proper site investigation and fact.
Fact or Fiction: the report talks about construction sites for the tunnelling solutions, but is silent
about the site needed for the PO. Could it be because the only possible site that has a water front location necessary for the
construction of a suspension bridge is Port Edgar? Could there be a reason for this? Could it be that the vast majority of Port Edgar is
a Ramsar site and as such it cannot be used for construction purposes, to do so would require substantial dredging of the
protected mud flats?
Fact, Fiction or just pure Spin: the preferred option of a bridge adjacent to the existing bridge, will disturb more Ramsar, SPA ,SSSI sites, Ancient Woodland, Listed Buildings, AGLV, historic buildings, create more visual intrusion, combined noise, higher concentrations of air pollution and impact more homes than any other solution considered in this report.
The criteria chosen for selection are clearly biased towards an adjacent bridge, one of the criteria being the nearness to the existing bridge, one of the other being an extension of the Trams.
The traffic data used is very suspect and the report is full of conjectured ground conditions.
Why are we going through this farce? The Scottish Executive clearly want a bridge that is adjacent to the existing one in order to wrap the construction and maintenance into a PFI solution. This would enable them to let a concession to a consortium that will jack up the tolls to achieve the desired effect of reducing the traffic crossing the bridge to the target 66000 vehicles per day. This would also achieve the City of Edinburgh objective of introducing Road Pricing.
Bring on the Public Enquiry, not even Lord Hutton as the Reporter would believe this story
*RAMSAR - Sites designated under the European Ramsar Convention to protect wetlands that are of international importance, particularly as waterfowl habitats.
FETA - Forth Estuary Transport Authority
PFI - Public Financed Initiative
SPA -Special Protected Areas
SSSI - Site of Special Scientific Interest
AGLV - Area of Great Landscape Value