MOTORISTS could find themselves stuck behind convoys of lorries on some of Scotland's major trunk roads if the country loses its only ferry connection to Europe, it has been warned.
DFDS, which operates the roll-on roll-off (ro-ro) service from Rosyth in Fife to Zeebrugge in Belgium, admitted it would face a "big challenge" in retaining the route in 2015, when new European regulations limiting sulphur dioxide emissions from shipping come into force.
The Road Haulage Association and Freight Trade Association (FTA) both said its loss would mean HGVs carrying export goods from the north of Scotland to ports in England instead of Rosyth.
"The A1 to Newcastle would end up like the A9 is now, log-jammed with lorries travelling on long stretches of single-carriageway road without many opportunities for overtaking," said Phil Flanders, RHA director for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Chris MacRae, the FTA's head of policy for Scotland, said increased emissions from lorries and worse congestion on UK roads would result if the Rosyth-Zeebrugge service closed.
This could lead to freight organisations sending goods the length of the UK in order to reach the continent, he added.
"You would see trucks heading south to Teesport and, daft as it sounds, they could end up going all the way down to the Channel ports because it would be cheaper to do it that way," he said. "You would see a huge amount of traffic on the A1."
A decline in use led DFDS to end passenger ferry services between Rosyth and Zeebrugge in 2010, retaining a freight-only service three times a week.
A confidential report earlier this month, commissioned by Edinburgh-based transport partnership SEStran, found DFDS had been losing money on the route since it converted to freight-only and the volume of trucks and other vehicles it carried in 2011 fell by 5% to 43,000. The traffic this year was expected to be "possibly marginally lower", the report found.
Professor Alan McKinnon, an expert on freight at Heriot-Watt University, recently warned the Rosyth-Zeebrugge ferry had not attracted enough traffic to be commercially viable and was unlikely to survive the introduction of tougher sulphur dioxide emissions regulations, which will push up fuel costs. "The Rosyth-Zeebrugge service may not survive," he said.
A spokesman for DFDS said there were currently "no plans for winding up" the Rosyth-Zeebrugge route. However, he added: "It cannot be denied the sulphur-emission regulations that come into force in 2015 constitute a very big challenge for many of our routes, and not only DFDS's routes, but all ro-ro and passenger routes in the Sulphur Emission Control Area – in particular routes that run parallel to roads."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article