The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Levenmouth rail link ‘at least £30m cheaper’
‘Wholly inappropriate’ methodology used for £91 million price tag
Restoring a rail service for one of the most deprived parts of Fife will be at least £30m cheaper than estimated, say campaigners.
The Levenmouth Rail Campaign said the official £91m price tag attached to the project was based on “wholly inappropriate” methodology.
In Holyrood, SNP MSP Jenny Gilruth took aim at her own government for central belt bias, with the Leven project left out of a major funding deal she labelled too Edinburghcentric.
Politicians from rival parties called on the government to commit to re-opening the fivemile link, which would connect the area to the Fife Circle line. Transport Minister Humza Yousaf said there were strong arguments for doing so and the government was listening, but insisted there needed to be a “robust business case”.
Campaigners have accused a transport consultancy of inflating the cost of reconnecting a Fife community to the railway system.
Systra used “wholly inappropriate” methodology to come to its £91 million estimate for delivering the Leven to Thornton rail link, according to the Levenmouth Rail Campaign (LMRC).
The group said the set-up costs were likely to be at least £30m lower than the figure used by Systra, which provided the official estimate.
The claim was made as MSPs from rival parties rounded on the Scottish Government for failing to make the project happen.
Jenny Gilruth, SNP MSP for Mid-Fife and Glenrothes, who led the Holyrood debate, said the process was lacking in transparency and she was “extremely disappointed” the scheme had not been included in the £1 billion Edinburgh city and region deal.
“That was an opportunity for all levels of government to grasp,” she said.
“Instead the deal has focused on the capital to the detriment of the region as originally intended. As Edinburgh booms, Levenmouth is beginning to contract.”
Transport minister Humza Yousaf said there was “still some more work to do” to build the case for the link, but the wider arguments were compelling.
“The government rightly will be held to account for every single penny of taxpayers’ money that we spend, therefore there has to be an absolutely robust business case,” he said.
Ahead of the Holyrood debate, LMRC published a report saying Systra had overstated the risk of spiralling costs.
It said the £91m price tag was “not realistic” and the figure from another engineering consultancy, Scott Wilson, of £58m is “the more credible estimate”.
A spokesman for Systra warned against making comparisons of different forecasts, insisting theirs was “made in line with current industry guidance”.
Leven, which has high levels of social deprivation, is the biggest built-up area in Scotland without direct access to a railway station.
Reopening the five-mile link would connect the town to the Fife Circle line, which should provide journey times of 30 minutes to Edinburgh and an hour to Dundee and Perth.
That was an opportunity for all levels of government to grasp. JENNY GILRUTH MSP