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.
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