Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is taking decisive action to stimulate new forestry planting to meet our ambitious annual planting target of 10,000 hectares. This includes delivering our new Forestry Grant Scheme and commissioning an independent review of the forestry planting approvals process to identify improvements which will help achieve, over the next few years, a step change in the pace and scale of new planting to ensure the long-term availability of timber and to meet our climate change targets. I will be discussing progress with the forestry sector at summits being held in the autumn.

Transport Scotland staff do not routinely record the time spent on individual projects, hence we do not hold that information.

An option for a more frequent weekday service between Dumfries and Carlisle formed part of the recent ScotRail Franchise tendering process.

As a result ScotRail are scheduled to introduce an enhanced timetable from December 2017.

The total cost of the transport summit was approximately £5,000.

A draft report on the proceedings of the summit was published on the Transport Scotland website on the 19 September. Contained within it were a number of action points that the Scottish Government will take forward.

This confirms that Transport Scotland will further assess recommendations for strategic transport infrastructure priorities in Dumfries and Galloway and the rest of Scotland as part of an update to the Strategic Transport Projects Review. This will follow the review of the National Transport Strategy and allow us to consider how to better connect Dumfries and Galloway with its links north and south through a variety of road and rail interventions, ensuring that we strike the right balance of transport investments in the region.

In order to ensure a focussed discussion took place at the summit invitations were issued to key representatives and stakeholders including local politicians, members of Dumfries & Galloway Council, along with transport and port operators, business groups, the Scottish Rural Parliament, the Third Sector and other local stakeholders.

As I announced at the Dumfries Transport Summit on the 22 August, we will further assess recommendations for strategic transport infrastructure priorities in Dumfries and Galloway and the rest of Scotland as part of an update to the Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR). Any assessment of these recommendations, including the estimated costs will be considered at that stage.

The forthcoming review of the Strategic Transport Projects Review will assess recommendations for strategic transport infrastructure priorities in Dumfries and Galloway and the rest of Scotland. Within the review options for the A75 corridor between Gretna and Stranraer will be considered. As this work is at an early scoping stage it is not currently possible to estimate the cost.

Rail fares are set by franchisees on a commercial basis. For the majority of rail services between Dumfries and Galloway and the Central Belt, fares are set by ScotRail.

In the current franchise period, the Scottish Government has taken action to help keep ScotRail fares down: annual regulated ScotRail peak fares increases are capped at the level of the Retail Price Index (RPI) and off-peak regulated fares increases are capped at one per cent below RPI.

The regulation of fares on rail services from Glasgow to Lockerbie, operated by the InterCity West Coast franchise, is a matter for the UK Government.

SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

WRITTEN ANSWER

21 September 2016

Index Heading: Transport Scotland

Oliver Mundell (Dumfriesshire) (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party): To ask the Scottish Government how many accidents on the (a) A76, (b) A75, (c) A7, (d) A701 between Dumfries and Moffat and (e) whole road network have been recorded by Transport Scotland in each of the last five years.

S5W-02451

Humza Yousaf: A76

A75

A7

A701

These figures relate to the trunk section of the A701 between Dumfries and the M74. The remainder of the A701 is a local road for which we do not hold data.

Trunk Road Network