Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2016
I, too, thank Jim Eadie and the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee for producing the report. It was important that the committee considered the issue, given the massive disruption and massive problems that were caused in my constituency and across Fife and the east of Scotland, and given the costs that had to be borne personally by people, businesses and—no doubt—the wider economy.
I welcome the report. Adam Ingram and Derek Mackay have been at pains to stress that there were no warnings of a defect and I do not disagree with that. I think that the report will be important and that people who read it will be able to draw their own conclusions about what exactly happened and about the history of maintenance of the bridge.
I agree with the committee’s conclusion that we should congratulate and thank everyone who worked hard to get the bridge open again, given the devastating impact that the closure was having. In addition to those whom the minister and Adam Ingram talked about, I include the police, who had to work very hard, and the local authority staff. I know that Fife Council’s transportation staff in particular did an amazing job, given the circumstances.
The crux of the matter is the question whether FETA was going to replace the truss end links in 2010. The report contains a significant point about the difference between the approach of FETA and the approach of Transport Scotland that was made during the committee’s evidence-taking sessions by a representative of Transport Scotland. That witness said:
“Our approach is different from FETA’s. It said, ‘Here is everything that we want’, whereas we build up from the bottom. We highlight the minimum funding requirement for maintenance to ensure the safe operation of the asset and for the works that are required to maintain the structural integrity of the bridge; we then consider the risks of not doing that work.”—[Official Report, Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, 20 January 2016; c 36.]
When the former bridgemaster, Barry Colford, gave evidence to the committee, he was asked whether, if the works had gone ahead on the truss end links, that would have resulted in the bridge not being closed. He said:
“As an engineer I do not want to answer hypothetical questions. All that I can say is that at that point that we had intended to replace the truss end links the capital programme included what we considered needed to be done on the Forth road bridge. It was not a wish list or what we wanted to do; it included what we considered needed to be done. Obviously, finances come into that.” —[Official Report, Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee, 27 January 2016; c 16.]
It is clear that FETA and its engineers considered that the truss end links should be replaced and that that was their intention until their budgets were cut. I suspect that, had the work happened, the bridge would not have run into the problems.
It is for people to draw their own conclusions from reading the report. The bottom line for me is that the work was planned. Had it gone ahead, the truss end links would have been replaced. That was where the problem was caused. Had the work happened, the likelihood of the closure and all the subsequent costs that came from it could have been avoided. It is for people to read the report and come to a conclusion. It is good that we have the report so that we can do that.