Press Release                  11 March 2010

Scottish freight firms urged to apply for government funds

Scottish rail freight companies are missing out on potential funding opportunities, because they are not putting together “good quality proposals”, according to Stewart Stevenson MSP, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change.

Speaking at the Rail Freight Group’s (RFG) 16^th Annual Scottish Conference on 10 March, he said: “Support for the freight industry budget will total £10.3bn in the coming year and this will fund our freight grants schemes.

“We are still looking for good quality propositions. This is money which we someties actually find quite difficult to give away. In the past we have perhaps been guilty of not making decisions fast enough and sometimes the commercial opportunity has escaped companies. I want to make sure we respond faster, so that happens much less frequently and preferably not at all in the future.”

He said there are currently 20 freight flows in Scotland that only happened because of government freight grants, and which had led to removing 15m lorry miles from the roads of Scotland in the past 12 months.

“We have one of the biggest transport investment programmes Scotland has ever seen and in the next three years alone we will invest £1bn in Scotland’s rail network, which will boost our economy,” he added.

Addressing the conference delegates, he said: “We want to help you, we’ve got the money and we want you to help us spend that money. It’s not often you hear a government minster saying help us spend more money, particuarly in the current environment.”

He said Scotland had suffered “five consecutive quarters of falling output”, but added “there are signs that the Scottish economy is close to emerging from recession”.

“We will work with the freight industry to overcome barriers to increasing rail use and make modal shift happen. 2009 has been the worst year in a generation but I’ve witnessed first-hand the determination of the freight sector to grow business in spite of that and there is evidence that is happening.”

He said quality rail srvices had a vital role in the Scottish economy and said the government had its sights set firmly on becoming a ‘low-carbon economy’ by 2020.

He also said the government’s Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR), which he added was one of the biggest reviews of its kind anywhere in the world, will help identify key focus points for investment into freight projects and establish a consistent decision making process.

[ENDS]