Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2016
Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer.
We do not realise the importance of the bridges that are part of our trunk road network until something goes seriously wrong with them. When they are closed, it is normally for repair work, because of an accident or for weather-related reasons. In my constituency of Edinburgh Western, the area around South Queensferry, Dalmeny, Kirkliston and the western approaches to the city of Edinburgh are badly affected when a closure of the Forth road bridge occurs. On 1 December, when a routine inspection unveiled a failure of the truss end link at the north-west corner of the main span, a chain of events began that pushed resilience planning and patience to the limits.
It is never a good time to close a bridge, but when it happens in the middle of winter, just before Christmas, it focuses the mind. “Could this have been avoided?”, “It was never like this under FETA”, “Has the money been cut for maintenance?”, and the simple, “Why did this happen?”—as the constituency MSP for the southern half of the Forth road bridge, I heard every type of question. I thank members of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment committee for conducting the inquiry to have those questions answered, so that the communities affected can understand what happened.
I also thank the bridge engineers who worked in extremely hazardous, life-threatening conditions to get the bridge back to a safe operating condition. When I abseiled off the Forth rail bridge a couple of years ago, conditions were perfect, and it was terrifying.