Greens have joined forces with Labour at Holyrood to press SNP ministers to abandon their plans to scrap the £7 million Freight Facilities Grant, a scheme which has underpinned moves to take goods by rail instead of road.
The party said that the move risked potential schemes which could take thousands of heavy lorries off the road from sites such as Diageo plants at Cameron Bridge in Fife and others in Clackmannanshire.
The Greens are pointing to the need to shift road freight off rural Fife roads to help improve safety and reduce congestion.
The move to cut the grant forms part of wider SNP plans to cut funding for rail services while spending on motorways continues to rise, the Greens said.
Businesses, trade unionists and environmental campaigners alike have criticised the move, which they claim will hit competitiveness and undermine efforts to tackle climate change.
The issue was raised at Parliament last week in a debate brought by Labour MSP Cathy Jamieson.
The MSP’s motion noted the contribution of the Scottish Government’s freight facilities grants in moving freight to rail and sea and contributing to reducing carbon emissions and congestion.
She noted that 37 grants totalling £68.9 million were made to Scottish projects, reducing the need for 33,573,500 lorry miles a year.
Ms Jamieson regretted that the Scottish Government proposed to reduce support for the freight industry from £10.3 million in 2010-11 to £2.9 million in 2011-12, including the closure of the grant scheme for projects which would incur expenditure beyond the end of this March.
Former Fife Green MSP Mark Ruskell, who is standing in this May’s Holyrood election, said, “If we want to keep Scotland moving while making our roads safer then we need to invest in shifting as much freight from road to rail as is feasible.
“The SNP must re-instate the budget for this grant to help businesses like Diageo at Cameron Bridge get the right rail freight facilities on the Leven line to maintain their competitiveness, while tackling congestion and climate change.”
ASLEF general secretary Keith Norman added, “Scotland’s future low carbon economy needs a strong rail freight sector.
“Freight facility grants have been a huge success in helping businesses get freight off roads and on to rail.”
Photo used under Creative Commons licence courtesy of Flickr user ted_major.