mediawatch.
scot
December 2015
There is no shortage of reports blaming the SNP Government for the recent
problems with the Forth Road Bridge. Strangely however none of the major
media outlets have seen fit to highlight the views of the person most closely
involved with bridge maintenance which were reported in the Central Fife
Times on 17th December. Obviously they do not fit with the story they wish to
tell.
It was the "right decision" to postpone repair work on the Forth Road Bridge
until the new Queensferry Crossing opens next year. That's according to
Dunfermline Lib Dem councillor Tony Martin, the last convener of FETA
the authority that was in charge of maintaining the 51-year-old structure.
Cllr Martin said: "Hindsight is a wonderful thing. it's an overstressed bridge
and because of that it's likely that things could go wrong but the decisions
were not taken lightly. "If we had needed to do the work there and then they
would have told us to do it. And we'd have got the money for it."
Cllr Martin, who was convener of Feta until it was dissolved earlier this year,
said: "The capital programme was rescoped because the new bridge was being
built and we tried to put off some of the work that would seriously
inconvenience motorists.
"The inspection and report we had done at that time said we could put this off
until 2016."With the knowledge we had, it was right to put it off until the new
bridge was open."
Cllr Martin said: "It's a political game where people are trying to score points.
"I'm not an SNP supporter but it was the right decision to build the new bridge
and the right decision to rescope the work because of the huge inconvenience it
would have caused”.
It is all too typical of the press in Scotland today when rather than report the
facts they would rather indulge in an orgy of sensationalism, lies, half truths and
innuendo to smear our democratically elected government. At no time during
the last few weeks have they given any credit for the fact that it was the SNP
who commissioned the replacement crossing and found the £1.5 billion pounds
from their capital budget to pay for it.
……………………………
An alert reader recently decided to send a Freedom of Information request to the
BBC about how many FOI requests it got, and how many it responded to with
its standard get-out clause that basically amounts to “None of your business”.
This was the response. You just pay for it, under penalty of law. It doesn’t
answer to you.
Forth Bridge Facts
A new replacement crossing was
first planned by John Major’s
Conservative Government in 1995
but was cancelled by Labour’s
Transport Minister Malcolm
Chisholm in 1997.
The Labour / Libdem Scottish
Executive delayed making a
decision on building a new bridge
for eight years between 1999 and
2007. This was despite repeated
warnings from FETA that the old
bridge could be forced to close as
early as 2014.
The first SNP Government decided
to proceed with the new
replacement bridge within six
months of coming to office in 2007
Replacement Bridge Quotes
Patrick Harvey (Greens) 3rd May
2013 “it is now crystal clear that
over a billion pounds of public
funds were squandered on an egotrip for ministers”
Sarah Boyak (Labour) 2nd Nov 2005
“the suggestion that a new bridge
should be built at the expense of the
tram routes in Edinburgh? That is an
outrageous suggestion”
Elaine Murray (Labour) 23rd Oct
2012 the project was “sucking in a
great deal of money” and that “the
case for a replacement was to a
certain extent overblown.”
(Source wingsoverscotland.com)
Keith Brown (SNP) 25th Feb 2012
“The Forth replacement crossing
project is absolutely vital to ensure
Scotland’s economic wellbeing”.