By Russell Borthwick
2020 is going to be an absolutely critical year for transport in the North-east. At the end of January, the Scottish Government is set to publish the long-awaited second National Transport Strategy (NTS2). Following this, our own regional transport partnership, Nestrans, will be seeking to finalise a regional transport strategy outlining the vision for the North-east.
The challenges that this strategy must address are unprecedented. Given the drive to net-zero, there exists the challenging task of realising rapid reductions in transport emissions, while simultaneously enhancing connectivity across the region and the country. When you consider transport is responsible for the largest proportion of Scotland’s emissions, this is going to need the full and combined focus of policymakers, business, and wider communities.
So what would we like to see from the strategy? Our discussions with members suggested a range of priorities.
Moving forward with much-needed investment to cut rail journey times between Aberdeen and the Central Belt was a common theme. There’s been some real positive movement to improve commuter services around the region but a credible plan to bring the speed of rail travel closer to the ‘mile a minute’ seen in parts of the central belt is paramount to get our intercity connectivity closer to modern standards.
The Scottish Government has major ambitions to decarbonise rail travel, aiming to phase out diesel services by 2035. This means that alongside significant infrastructure improvements to speed up journey times, concurrent investment in innovative solutions such as hydrogen trains will be necessary to meet our climate obligations.
We also recommended that the NTS2 should kick off the process of creating a Scotland-specific Aviation Strategy. The Scottish Government’s u-turn on promises to cut Air Passenger Duty was a gut-punch for many in the North-east, given that Aberdeen International Airport continues to be disadvantaged by the current structure. With this in mind there needs to be a focused exercise undertaken to determine how the aviation industry is supported not just to grow Scotland’s domestic and international connections but also to lead in investment in low-carbon technologies and the future of the sector.
We raised a range of other issues but the core theme is balance. The level of investment, and the vision behind it, must be unprecedented and innovative.
Russell Borthwick is chief executive, Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce.
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