The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday May 01 2025 #Transport

The Scotsman

Dale speaks to transport correspondent Alastair Dalton about the upcoming opening of the new Renfrew Bridge and gets an update on work on Edinburgh's North Bridge

Transcript

00:00hello and welcome to the scotsman's daily video bulletin for this thursday my name's dale miller

00:05i'm deputy editor of the scotsman and i'm joined by our transport correspondent alistair dalton

00:11alistair coming uh live from the scene of a new bridge that's been recently opened here in scotland

00:18but i'll get to talk sorry i'll get to talking to you about that in a moment and firstly we'll

00:25look at the front page of tonight's scotsman and we led on the majority of smp voters backing uh

00:32nuclear power or nuclear power systems um this was a poll that was carried out by opinion

00:40and basically asked not just of smp voters but of um scott's polled in general about their support

00:48for nuclear technology and it was interesting that 56 percent of scots overall in the poll

00:54showed support for it and 53 percent specifically of smp voters said they would be behind this

01:02technology being used in scotland now we know that there is a pre-existing position within the smp that

01:08they are against nuclear technology effectively being used and developed here in scotland they've

01:17been against trident for a significant period of time um so it's a very interesting uh survey and

01:25perhaps let's see whether it'll add any pressure to the smp's position around this issue um alistair

01:33uh you're on the scene of the new bridge um i mentioned off the top tell me a little bit about it

01:41because it's a significant opening but also it comes with i'm not going to call it a catch but

01:46it comes with a a slight warning yeah welcome to the river clyde in scotland's newest bridge which

01:55will link renfrew with clyde bank uh behind me it's going to officially open a week today and then open to

02:03traffic on friday the 9th of may and it'll be the first opening road bridge over the clyde and that

02:13the significance there is that uh it's opening so that uh shipping can come up river to the docks in

02:20glasgow and we revealed earlier in the week that these closures to traffic while the bridge is open

02:28the largest ships will be as long as three hours which is quite a surprise um uh that this is just

02:38for the biggest ships it'll be shorter uh for um others uh and it may be that uh this happens once every

02:48two weeks or so we've been told that the type of ship that require a three-hour closure has passed about

02:5692 times the last four years i work at work at that roughly every 16 days and alistair thanks for

03:03clarifying i think i said off the top of the open but of course not just yet it is coming up soon and

03:08we'll we'll bring you um the latest coverage from that opening as well when people think of bridges

03:14they might compare it to queensfree crossing or the concardin bridge um or the like how how does it

03:20compare in terms of size uh it has some similarities actually to the queensberry crossing it's it has a

03:28bit of a cable stay design you may be able to see um it's much shorter obviously um and uh has taken

03:38much less time to to build also the amount of traffic i would imagine it'd be far less because it's not on

03:45a major route like the erskine bridge uh five miles downstream which is on a motorway link between

03:53in the clyde and uh western bartenshire or the clyde tunnel in glasgow two miles upstream but uh

04:00sometimes you build new roads and that just attracts traffic so we'll have to see

04:05and alistair on the subject of bridges uh you're in inside another bridge yesterday that feels like

04:12it's been refurbished for a significant period of time now can you can you update on where you were

04:17and what you found was yeah so this is one of edinburgh's arguably most significant bridges a major

04:25route between the old and new towns that north bridge which spans waverley station but for people who

04:32visited the city for the first time over the last seven years they'll have no idea what lies behind

04:39the scaffolding and sheeting that has enveloped the bridge there's been major refurbishment work uh

04:47taking place since 2018 which will continue until the spring of next year uh initially it was due to

04:55take two years and cost about 22 million but significantly uh worse deterioration of this steel

05:02work and other parts of the bridge which is uh built in 1897 were found and it'll be closed

05:09for it'll be worked on and partially closed for traffic uh for eight years and the total cost would

05:16be at least 86 million four times as much but the council say that could go up even more uh we were

05:23lucky enough to go inside that um uh plastic sheeting and the scaffolding to see it first hand the work and

05:31i think people are going to be amazed by the the color particularly the color scheme that the the golds

05:39blues reds off the side of the bridge uh but i think much brighter and sharper than than than you'll

05:45remember all those years ago when it was visible uh you can watch the video uh effectively inside the

05:53the bridge sportsman.com and read alistair's um account of uh of the visit as well alistair just

06:00lastly vehicle charging points um seems to be the holy grail that we have a full connected network

06:08across scotland where you can comfortably drive and pull over and charge your car wherever you want

06:13um you were um covering the fact that there were some new charge points being rolled out in in

06:19life am i correct yesterday but their ambitions to to do more across scotland yeah it seems everybody

06:27is jumping on this bandwagon uh the latest of them is a a new company called source which is

06:34a partnership between scottish and southern energy perth-based company and total they are building ultra

06:43rapid chargers which could charge your car in just 15 minutes they've got their first one in scotland

06:49ocean terminal in leaf um there's a a similar one uh in dundee with even even uh faster charges and they

06:58they say that the big focus for the development is actually the highlands rural areas where um there's

07:05a lot of people uh visiting and in the countryside most of the the tourist traffic will be right road and

07:14they want to encourage people to be to be confident that there'll be somewhere to charge their electric

07:20vehicle and that it's um uh scotland is the place to to the green motoring scotland is ahead of the

07:28game it has proportionally more charges than anywhere else in the uk apart from london but uh source were

07:34telling me yesterday that there's still a lot of concern amongst drivers about the lack of uh charges which is

07:41they stay putting people off making the switch to to buying an electric car you can read all the

07:49stories that we've discussed um including around both bridges and uh car charging points at scotsman.com

07:57if you ever can't find any of alistair dalton's coverage there is a transport tab in the news

08:03navigation bar uh so please uh follow that to get all the very latest from him uh follow us on all social

08:09media channels and go out and pick up a copy of the scotsman tomorrow we'll have all the latest from

08:14first minister's questions today and more details around the us ukraine minerals deal which was signed

08:21overnight uh will it be the problem solver and the significant next step to achieving peace in the war

08:29involving russia uh please uh tune in pick up a copy of that paper thanks to you alistair and thanks

08:35everyone else for joining us

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