Blow to Glasgow Airport rail link plans as some land sold
24.04.11
The Labour party's hopes of reinstating the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (Garl) suffered a fresh setback after it emerged that some of the land it was to be built on has been sold back to its previous owners, the Herald reports. Transport Scotland, the Government agency in charge of delivering the now mothballed £200 million project, told the newspaper that four plots of land on an industrial estate in Paisley where the branch line was to join with the existing railway now had offers accepted to sell them back to their original owners. Negotiations on a further four plots are ongoing.
The sales will make it more difficult for Labour to fulfil an election promise to revive Garl if it secures power on May 5, as the Scottish Government would have to use compulsory purchase powers to buy the land for a second time and offer further compensation to the owners. Labour and the Conservatives reacted to the news by claiming that the SNP had pursued a ‘scorched earth’ policy to Garl after scrapping it in September 2009 due to a funding shortfall.
Charlie Gordon, Scottish Labour’s transport spokesman and candidate for Glasgow Cathcart, told the Herald: ‘We warned about the SNP’s scorched-earth policy to destroy the Glasgow Airport Rail Link project and evidence has now emerged to prove that. But Scottish Labour is determined to reinstate the project if we are elected to form the next Scottish Government. It was a huge mistake to scrap Garl, which would have created many jobs in the city.’
Jackson Carlaw, the Conservative Party’s transport spokesman, added: ‘This sale seems premature. It was clear that the original Garl proposal would not deliver value for money to the taxpayer or improve connectivity. However, the Scottish Conservatives are committed in principle to a rail link and would have preferred a full discussion of options before land was sold off.’
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