Skye Bridge
The shortest crossing between the mainland and the island (around 500 metres), the sound between the villages of Kyle of Lochalsh on the mainland and Kyleakin on the island's east coast has traditionally been the most common route. A ferry operated services from around 1600, run by a number of private operators and latterly by Caledonian MacBrayne.
Contents
Design and construction
Toll controversy
Timeline: The Skye Bridge tolls
SKYE BRIDGE FINANCES
Tolls abolished for Skye Bridge
Fiscal 'stunned' at tolls denial
Crown office lied over Skye Bridge - proof
SKAT: Skye & Kyle against Tolls
Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)
With the construction of road and rail connections to Kyle of Lochalsh toward the end of the 19th century, various parties proposed the construction of a bridge to the island. Although the engineering task was well within the capability of the age (the crossing is shorter and shallower than that bridged by the Forth Bridge), the island's remote location and its small population meant the cost of a bridge could not be justified.
Increased prosperity in the islands, and a healthy summertime tourist traffic, led to ever increasing volumes of traffic queueing for the ferries, and brought renewed calls for the construction of a road bridge. In 1989 Conservative junior minister James Douglas-Hamilton announced a bidding round, requested tenders to construct a toll bridge. The contract was awarded to Miller-Dywidag, a consortium composed of Scottish construction company Miller Construction, German engineering company Dywidag International, and financial partner the Bank of America. The Miller-Dywidag proposal (designed in collaboration with civil engineering firm Arup) was for a single-span concrete arch supported by two piers resting on caissons in the loch. The PFI plan was accepted, and received support from local MP Charles Kennedy and the local council. Although the bridge itself was built with PFI, the approach roads were the responsibility of the Scottish Office, which paid £15 million for the roads and associated improvements, and to cover the costs associated with decommissioning the ferry. Construction began in 1992 and the bridge was opened by Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Forsyth on October 16, 1995. At this time the ferry service across the sound ceased, leaving the bridge and the Mallaig — Armadale ferry as the only year-round connections to the mainland.
The first major capital project funded by the Private Finance Initiative, the bridge has been controversial since its construction was announced. In exchange for the contractors funding the bridge's construction themselves (rather than being paid to do so from the public exchequer) they were granted a licence to operate the bridge and charge travellers tolls. When the Bridge contract was first awarded, the partnership estimated it would cost around £15 million, although delays and design changes added significantly to the cost (to around £25 million, by the BBC's estimate).
The tolls charged by the bridge concessionaire, Skye Bridge Ltd., proved to be particularly unpopular. Local councillor Drew Millar later told the BBC that the council had expected the tolls to be no more than one pound, perhaps around 40p initially, but the initial toll for a round trip in a car was £9, slightly less than the cost of the ferry it replaced. By 2004 a round trip cost visitors £11.40, fourteen times the round trip price charged by the Forth Road Bridge (a crossing over twice the length), a price which protesters claimed made it the most expensive road in Europe. As the Skye bridge was being constructed, several other (smaller) bridges were also being built or planned in the Hebrides, connecting smaller islands either to larger ones or to the mainland. These bridges were to be public roads without tolls, and Skye locals came to believe that the Skye bridge too was a public road on which no toll should be levvied.
The ferry operator, Caledonian MacBrayne, had made a profit of over a million pounds per year on the route, but observers from the BofA and later the National Audit Office noted that many locals were excused the ferry fee by ferry workers, with much of the ferry's revenue coming from the heavy summertime tourist traffic. One local told the BBC that on the day following a defeat of the English football team by their German counterparts, ferry workers had let cars bearing German licence plates travel for free. In the bridge's first year of operation it recorded traffic of 612,000 vehicles, a third more than the ferry's official numbers.
Opposition to the tolls, led by local group Skye and Kyle Against Tolls (SKAT) and veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict, began with the opening of the bridge. This included mass protests and a prolonged non-payment campaign, and continued as long as the tolls. A toll-collector interviewed by the BBC in 2005 said that abuse of collectors by motorists had been commonplace. Numerous toll opponents were cited for refusing to pay the toll, with around 500 being arrested and 130 subsequently convicted of nonpayment. Of these only SKAT Secretary Andy Anderson (the first person convicted) received a (brief) prison term. Those charged with nonpayment had to make the 140 mile round trip to Dingwall sheriff court, again crossing the bridge and where again many refused to pay, incurring a further criminal charge. Robbie the Pict argued that the legal paperwork for the tolls was incomplete, and that consequently the tolls themselves were illegal. In particular he said that the "assignation statement", a licence to charge a toll, had never been given. Interviewed later by the BBC Fiscal Davind Hingston in Dingwall refuted this claim, but admitted that he himself had been denied access to many government documents on the case, on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. Hingston told tbe BBC "As a fiscal I was stuck with that evidence but as a private individual I found it stunning", leading to renewed calls that the convictions of the toll protestors should be quashed - to this the Crown Office reiterated that appeals on these grounds had already been rejected by the courts.
The bridge, and the toll protest, became a continuing political issue, with Robbie the Pict running for MSP (unsuccessfully) partially on an anti-toll platform, and only the ruling Labour Party continuing to support the tolls. Hoping to quell local concern, the Scottish Office introduced a scheme whereby tolls for locals were subsidised; locals paid half the toll, the government the other half (the scheme cost a total of £7 million). Following the creation of the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Labour Party joined in coalition with the Scottish Liberal Democrats, who were particularly popular in the islands. With responsibility for Scotland's road network transferred from Westminster to the Scottish Executive, increased political pressure was placed on the toll's future. On June 3, 2004, Jim Wallace, the Enterprise Minister in the Scottish Executive announced that he hoped the bridge would be bought out, and tolls abolished, by the end of the 2004. In line with this, on December 21, 2004, Scottish Transport Minister Nicol Stephen announced that the bridge had been purchased for approximately £27 million, and toll collection immediately ceased. During the preceding decade £33.3 million in tolls had been collected. Figures obtained by the BBC under freedom of information laws showed the consortium's operating costs on the bridge had been £3.5 million.
The topic is explored extensively in George Monbiot's book Captive State in which he examines the merits and demerits of Private Finance Initiatives extensively.
The controversial toll regime on the Skye Bridge crossing has been abolished following a long campaign by islanders. More than £27m had been collected from drivers and protesters have argued that the bridge has paid for itself many times over.
The crossing's history.
October 1989: Tenders go out under the then Conservative-run Scottish Office for a privately-funded bridge connecting Skye to the mainland after Highland Regional Council is told it will be several decades before one can be built using public money.
December 1991: Contracts are signed for the building of the bridge under Scotland's first Private Finance Initiative (PFI).
January 1992: A public inquiry into a bridge begins in Kyle.
15 October, 1995: The last Caledonian MacBrayne ferry makes the five-minute run between Kyle and Kyleakin.
16 October, 1995: The bridge, run by Skye Bridge Limited, officially opens for business. Built by a commercial group led by the Bank of America, the bridge company charges the highest bridge tolls per mile in Europe to recoup its investment.
17 October, 1995: The tolls come into force at midnight and just hours later the first anti-toll protesters are arrested.
January 1996: The first protesters appear at Dingwall Sheriff Court, accused of failing to pay the bridge tolls.
16 December, 1999: Anti-toll campaigners lose a bid at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh challenging the legality of the charges.
January 2000: Scottish ministers freeze the tolls at 1999 levels - £11.40 for a return car journey.
26 June, 2000: Law expert Professor Robert Black, of Edinburgh University, says the tolls may be illegal. He criticises the tolling order assignation statement by the secretary of state for Scotland for being unsigned and undated.
12 September, 2000: The European Court of Justice rules the UK is breaching EU regulations by not applying VAT to road and bridge tolls operated by private companies, including the Skye Bridge charges.
5 December, 2001: The statutory instruments reference committee at Westminster meets for the first time in almost 25 years and rejects claims that the tolls are illegal after a request from local MP and Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy and veteran campaigner Robbie the Pict.
18 February, 2003: Robbie the Pict asks the courts to look into claims that judges in 12 Skye Bridge cases were members of the "secretive" Speculative Society, an elite debating club founded in 1764.
15 May, 2003: Following the Scottish Parliament election on 1 May, the formal written coalition deal between Labour and the Liberal Democrats is agreed after eight days of negotiations. It contains a commitment to "reviewing existing bridge tolls in Scotland and entering into negotiations with a view to ending the discredited toll regime for the Skye Bridge" by 1 January, 2005.
14 January, 2004: The Scottish Parliament is told that financial experts Commerzbank AG have been appointed to advise ministers on ending the toll regime.
3 May, 2004: Frustrated opponents of the tolls risk jail to threaten a relaunch of the "can pay, won't pay" campaign which operated in the early years of the tolls.
7 May , 2004: In its frustration over the tolls, Highland Council decides to petition the Court of Session for a judicial review of the charges.
21 December, 2004: The Scottish Executive announces abolition of the tolls.
Bridge cost the operators a total of £39m to build, £12m of which was a government grant
By June 2003, tolls worth about £27m were collected
The Scottish Executive is paying about £27m to buy out the contract
Under the original contract, the franchise period for the Skye Bridge company was to run for 27 years, or until the costs were recovered
The Scottish Executive believes costs would have been recovered in eight years time
The executive calculated it would have had to provide a further £18m in subsidy if it had not bought out the contract - as tolls were frozen at 1999 levels
Tolls collected over that period would have been a further £20m
The Scottish Executive has abolished the controversial Skye Bridge tolls. The government announced an end to the charges on Tuesday morning after it bought back the bridge from its private owners for £27m. The deal to bring the tolls to an end was understood to have been brokered on Monday night and the last toll was paid as the announcement was made. The charges had been in force since the span opened in October 1995 and were bitterly opposed by protesters.
The executive officially takes control of the bridge on 1 January from Skye Bridge Limited, which built the bridge under a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) deal with the government. The exact figure the company will receive will not be known until then, when its final audited accounts are prepared. However, according to the executive, if it had not bought out the bridge when it did, it would have had to provide a further £18m in subsidy and drivers would have had to pay a further £20m in tolls before the PFI contract ended in eight years time.
The 21 workers who collected the tolls from motorists will now lose their jobs.
Transport Minister Nicol Stephen announced an end to the tolls at about 0730 GMT at a press conference in Kyleakin, on the island side of the controversial crossing. The Liberal Democrat MSP said: "This is a historic day for everyone on Skye.
'Genuine injustice'
"We made a commitment last year to end the tolls on Skye Bridge. Today that promise has been delivered. "The abolition of tolls sweeps away a source of deep division and genuine injustice. "Today we are sweeping away one of the last vestiges of the Conservative era, this first PFI contract that sought to put so much of the cost on to the local people of Skye and Lochalsh."
Scrapping the tolls has long been a priority for the Lib Dems and featured in the party's coalition pact with Labour. The Liberals said they wanted to end "the discredited tolling regime for the Skye bridge" by 1 January, 2005, and hinted in June that they would follow through on their pledge.
Party leader Jim Wallace told parliament the tolls would be abolished by the end of the year and negotiations began to put an executive-funded buy-out together.
William Easingwood, 59, a fisherman from Dunbar, was the first motorist to legally cross the bridge without paying on Tuesday. He said: "I certainly feel better for it. "The government has got the money to do this so I'm glad that they have."
Victory cheers
As Tuesday's announcement was made bridge officials covered the bridge bollards with bin bags, cashed up their floats and lowered the shutters down on the toll booths.
Motorists were initially confused as staff waved them through the bridge barriers without asking for payment but soon drivers could be heard sounding their horns and cheering as news of the changes filtered through.
Mr Stephen was joined by First Minister Jack McConnell to make the historic announcement. Mr McConnell said: "This is the start of a new era for Skye. "Instead of the bridge being a symbol of controversy, it can now be a symbol for growth and prosperity."
Despite the good news, the Scottish National Party claimed questions still remained about the Skye Bridge. Transport spokesman Fergus Ewing said: "Will there be a public inquiry? And what about those people who have been convicted wrongly - will they be overturned? "How much did the bridge actually cost and how much has been received over the last nine years in tolls? "Isn't this the most expensive contract that has ever been in the history of PFI procurement in Scotland?"
The Skye Bridge was the first-ever PFI deal and since the five-minute crossing first opened it has caused much controversy. The bridge was built by a commercial group led by the Bank of America and under the deal it used the charges to recoup its £39m costs. Its tolls were based on the old ferry fares between the island and the mainland and as a result were the highest levied in Europe.
More than 100 people have been convicted for refusing to pay the tolls, some even ending up in prison. Protesters claimed the tolls were unfair and too high and complained the owners had collected much more than it cost to build the bridge.
Local residents and campaigners are overjoyed at the victory The general secretary of Skye and Kyle Against Tolls (Skat) action group Andy Anderson said: "Skat notes with great satisfaction that the toll imposed on our community has finally been abolished. "This toll has seriously damaged our economy and undermined the principles of democracy. "We will organise a public celebration of this great victory for the community."
However, despite the celebrations, for one protester the battle will carry on. On hearing the good news, Robbie the Pict, a high-profile opponent of the scheme, vowed to fight on through the courts to clear protesters of any criminal convictions and expose the projects shortcomings.
Under an ongoing review into bridge tolls in Scotland the charges levied on the Erskine Bridge across the River Clyde will also be looked at.
The West Dunbartonshire bridge is owned by Scottish ministers and carries about 2,000 vehicles a day. However, the executive said the implications of changing or removing tolls on other Scottish bridges were "more complicated" and required further consideration.
The man who prosecuted Skye Bridge protesters was denied access to the legal document which allowed the tolls to be imposed, it has emerged. Former Dingwall procurator fiscal David Hingston said it was "stunning" that he had not seen the licence giving bridge operators the right to charge drivers.
Mr Hingston, now a private practitioner, was speaking a year after the bridge's £5 toll was abolished. He said that the UK Government only gave him access to certain documents. "This was said to be because things were allegedly commercially confidential," he said. "As a fiscal I was stuck with that evidence but as a private individual I found it stunning, frankly."
The bridge, Scotland's first private finance initiative, was opened in 1995. It was operated by the Skye Bridge Company and financed by the Bank of America. Within hours of it opening, anti-toll protesters were arrested for failing to pay the charge and around 130 people were later convicted in court.
In December 2004, First Minister Jack McConnell announced that the Scottish Executive was to buy out the bridge contract in a £27m deal, and abolished the toll.
Convictions overturned
Campaigners have argued that all those convicted of failing to pay the toll should now have their convictions overturned. Skye postmaster Drew Millar was convicted for refusing to pay. He said: "Personally, I couldn't care less if I have a criminal conviction or not. "However, I think it would be nice not to have a record, if the government would accept that they were wrong from day one." But a spokeswoman for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said: "The former toll order and tolling regime have been challenged in the courts on several occasions. "All such challenges have proved unsuccessful."
The bridge was one of the flagships of the Conservatives' policy to fund more public projects with private finance. After operating costs, the Skye Bridge Company earned £30m from the tolls over nine years. Taking into account the £27m it was paid for the bridge and the £21m it took to build it, the consortium made £36m profit. The government had already paid £15m for the approach roads, £7m to subsidise tolls for local users. With the purchase cost included, £49m came from the public purse.
Former government minister Brian Wilson said: "There was a perfectly good case for building a bridge to Skye but there wasn't a perfectly good case for paying for it twice and that was ultimately what the high toll option resulted in. "At the end of the day, I don't think the best use of money in Skye or in that immediate locality, even at the end, was to buyout the contract"
SKAT: Skye & Kyle against Tolls
Website address: http://www.skat.org.uk
Website address: http://www.skat.org.uk
SKAT is made up of islanders and
mainland supporters from across the entire social spectrum. It has in
the main two things in common: -
• a sense of outrage about the
way the bridge regime was set up and
run
• and a history of being law
abiding peaceful citizens.
Its members include Councillors, Doctors, Businessmen, Teachers, Local Government Officers, Retired People, Crofters, Hoteliers, Fishermen and workers from all the trades. They are not professional protesters, for most of them this was/is a new experience. It succeeded in having the tolls removed by using any non-violent means.
SKAT is a non-political organisation, it has members who are active in all of the political parties and members who are active in none. It fought the Tory Government, and it fought the Labour one.The issue of the Skye Bridge and its effect on the local fragile economy united all locally based political activists. Its funding comes from donations and from its members. Its protests have been non-violent and good humoured – indeed a model that should be emulated by others.
See link: Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)