THE opening of the Skye bridge will be remembered for many reasons,

some good and some bad. It is a moment of history, and like other feats

of engineering in Scotland it will be recalled with feelings of pride in

technical achievement many times in the future. It is a defining moment

in the history of Skye, no longer to be an island reached by the

romantic, if brief, route of a ferry crossing. Skye will never be the

same again, and though this will be a matter of regret for some

islanders, and perhaps for visitors as well, the advantages of driving

to the island in preference to crossing slowly and sometimes unsteadily

on a ferry are obvious. Other islands around the Scottish coast may look

with envy on the bridge, particularly because of the fearsome rates

charged by mainland haulage companies when delivering often essential

goods by ferry. Since a road equalisation tariff scheme appears to be a

lost dream for Scotland's islanders a bridge, where feasible, should be

the best way to reduce the penalty of living in relative isolation. For

Skye's 9000 residents and countless visitors life will be easier and

safer, as was demonstrated by the early and temporary opening of the

bridge recently to allow an ambulance to cross for an emergency. Nor

does the Skye bridge constitute the dreadful concrete blot on the

landscape which was feared by many. It is slim, tasteful, and quite

incapable of upstaging the magnificence of the scenery which surrounds

it.

Thus the bridge linking Skye to the mainland has many commendable

features. Unfortunately, it has also generated bitter controversy and

brought considerable ill-feeling to the island. This is because of the

manner in which the project was conceived and financed, and the way in

which it will be run. There is little doubt that Skye would still be

waiting for a bridge if the funding were to have come from the public

purse. This allowed those in favour of private financing of large

capital projects to propose a scheme through which a consortium would

finance and build the bridge and recoup its costs by charging tolls. By

this means the bridge was built, though in the face of determined

opposition from many local campaigners who objected to what will be

their lifeline to the mainland being run by a private company intent on

recovering, in less than 25 years, its investment plus interest.

In several respects the campaigners' worst fears have been realised.

The tolls to be charged are the highest in Britain, and very probably in

Europe. This seems a harsh imposition on a small community where most

people work in tourism-related businesses. Just as objectionable, and

quite counter to the ideology which propelled the bridge in the first

place, is the fact that the consortium operating the business has a

monopoly. This is because the Scottish Office insisted on the withdrawal

of the ferry which ran between roughly the same points as the bridge. A

ferry in the future may not be impossible but at the moment the odds are

stacked heavily against it. Through the intervention of the Secretary of

State for Scotland the excessively heavy toll for small commercial

vehicles, which represented a lapse into the deepest stupidity by the

operating company, was withdrawn; for that the islanders should be glad.

The Skye bridge is now a fact of life. Its benefits can and should be

enjoyed without necessarily compromising deeply-felt objections.