Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2016
Thank you very much, Presiding Officer.
On behalf of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, I am pleased to open the debate on the committee’s inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Forth road bridge. It is clear that the bridge’s closure on 3 December last year caused widespread disruption and frustration for the travelling public and had a significant impact on many businesses during one of the busiest periods of the year. The committee therefore felt that it was essential to examine the circumstances that led to the closure of this key artery in Scotland’s transport infrastructure and to consider whether what happened could reasonably have been foreseen.
In its inquiry, the committee benefited greatly from the expertise and experience of our witnesses and our technical adviser, Alan Simpson, and I take the opportunity to record the committee’s thanks to them, and to those who submitted written evidence, for their input.
Before I outline the key issues that the committee addressed in its inquiry report, I want to comment on the suggestion made by some members following the report’s publication that it was somehow incomplete, as it did not address the impact that the closure of the bridge had on businesses, particularly the haulage industry. That suggests a failure on the part of those members to recognise the highly focused nature of the inquiry, which the committee agreed should focus only on issues related to the structural defects that led to the bridge’s closure, and their repair.
However, the committee is very conscious that issues such as the design and operation of alternative travel routes following the closure, and its economic impact, may justify further detailed scrutiny, so it intends to include in its legacy report a recommendation that its successor committee or committees should consider whether further work on such matters should be carried out early in the new session.
I turn to the report. One issue that was explored by the committee was the timeline of the decision making that led to the closure of the bridge on 3 December. It emerged that there was a time delay of five hours between the recommendation by Amey at 4 pm that the bridge should be closed and the decision to close it, which was taken at 9 pm at a meeting with ministers. The committee recognises that the delay on 3 December did not present any immediate danger to bridge users, but it is of the view that it should be possible for an emergency closure that is considered necessary by senior engineers to be implemented by them without delay, without there being a requirement—