Dale speaks to transport correspondent Alastair Dalton about the upcoming opening of the new Renfrew Bridge and gets an update on work on Edinburgh's North Bridge
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TravelTranscript
00:00hello and welcome to the scotsman's daily video bulletin for this thursday my name's dale miller
00:05i'm deputy editor of the scotsman and i'm joined by our transport correspondent alistair dalton
00:11alistair coming uh live from the scene of a new bridge that's been recently opened here in scotland
00:18but i'll get to talk sorry i'll get to talking to you about that in a moment and firstly we'll
00:25look at the front page of tonight's scotsman and we led on the majority of smp voters backing uh
00:32nuclear power or nuclear power systems um this was a poll that was carried out by opinion
00:40and basically asked not just of smp voters but of um scott's polled in general about their support
00:48for nuclear technology and it was interesting that 56 percent of scots overall in the poll
00:54showed support for it and 53 percent specifically of smp voters said they would be behind this
01:02technology being used in scotland now we know that there is a pre-existing position within the smp that
01:08they are against nuclear technology effectively being used and developed here in scotland they've
01:17been against trident for a significant period of time um so it's a very interesting uh survey and
01:25perhaps let's see whether it'll add any pressure to the smp's position around this issue um alistair
01:33uh you're on the scene of the new bridge um i mentioned off the top tell me a little bit about it
01:41because it's a significant opening but also it comes with i'm not going to call it a catch but
01:46it comes with a a slight warning yeah welcome to the river clyde in scotland's newest bridge which
01:55will link renfrew with clyde bank uh behind me it's going to officially open a week today and then open to
02:03traffic on friday the 9th of may and it'll be the first opening road bridge over the clyde and that
02:13the significance there is that uh it's opening so that uh shipping can come up river to the docks in
02:20glasgow and we revealed earlier in the week that these closures to traffic while the bridge is open
02:28the largest ships will be as long as three hours which is quite a surprise um uh that this is just
02:38for the biggest ships it'll be shorter uh for um others uh and it may be that uh this happens once every
02:48two weeks or so we've been told that the type of ship that require a three-hour closure has passed about
02:5692 times the last four years i work at work at that roughly every 16 days and alistair thanks for
03:03clarifying i think i said off the top of the open but of course not just yet it is coming up soon and
03:08we'll we'll bring you um the latest coverage from that opening as well when people think of bridges
03:14they might compare it to queensfree crossing or the concardin bridge um or the like how how does it
03:20compare in terms of size uh it has some similarities actually to the queensberry crossing it's it has a
03:28bit of a cable stay design you may be able to see um it's much shorter obviously um and uh has taken
03:38much less time to to build also the amount of traffic i would imagine it'd be far less because it's not on
03:45a major route like the erskine bridge uh five miles downstream which is on a motorway link between
03:53in the clyde and uh western bartenshire or the clyde tunnel in glasgow two miles upstream but uh
04:00sometimes you build new roads and that just attracts traffic so we'll have to see
04:05and alistair on the subject of bridges uh you're in inside another bridge yesterday that feels like
04:12it's been refurbished for a significant period of time now can you can you update on where you were
04:17and what you found was yeah so this is one of edinburgh's arguably most significant bridges a major
04:25route between the old and new towns that north bridge which spans waverley station but for people who
04:32visited the city for the first time over the last seven years they'll have no idea what lies behind
04:39the scaffolding and sheeting that has enveloped the bridge there's been major refurbishment work uh
04:47taking place since 2018 which will continue until the spring of next year uh initially it was due to
04:55take two years and cost about 22 million but significantly uh worse deterioration of this steel
05:02work and other parts of the bridge which is uh built in 1897 were found and it'll be closed
05:09for it'll be worked on and partially closed for traffic uh for eight years and the total cost would
05:16be at least 86 million four times as much but the council say that could go up even more uh we were
05:23lucky enough to go inside that um uh plastic sheeting and the scaffolding to see it first hand the work and
05:31i think people are going to be amazed by the the color particularly the color scheme that the the golds
05:39blues reds off the side of the bridge uh but i think much brighter and sharper than than than you'll
05:45remember all those years ago when it was visible uh you can watch the video uh effectively inside the
05:53the bridge sportsman.com and read alistair's um account of uh of the visit as well alistair just
06:00lastly vehicle charging points um seems to be the holy grail that we have a full connected network
06:08across scotland where you can comfortably drive and pull over and charge your car wherever you want
06:13um you were um covering the fact that there were some new charge points being rolled out in in
06:19life am i correct yesterday but their ambitions to to do more across scotland yeah it seems everybody
06:27is jumping on this bandwagon uh the latest of them is a a new company called source which is
06:34a partnership between scottish and southern energy perth-based company and total they are building ultra
06:43rapid chargers which could charge your car in just 15 minutes they've got their first one in scotland
06:49ocean terminal in leaf um there's a a similar one uh in dundee with even even uh faster charges and they
06:58they say that the big focus for the development is actually the highlands rural areas where um there's
07:05a lot of people uh visiting and in the countryside most of the the tourist traffic will be right road and
07:14they want to encourage people to be to be confident that there'll be somewhere to charge their electric
07:20vehicle and that it's um uh scotland is the place to to the green motoring scotland is ahead of the
07:28game it has proportionally more charges than anywhere else in the uk apart from london but uh source were
07:34telling me yesterday that there's still a lot of concern amongst drivers about the lack of uh charges which is
07:41they stay putting people off making the switch to to buying an electric car you can read all the
07:49stories that we've discussed um including around both bridges and uh car charging points at scotsman.com
07:57if you ever can't find any of alistair dalton's coverage there is a transport tab in the news
08:03navigation bar uh so please uh follow that to get all the very latest from him uh follow us on all social
08:09media channels and go out and pick up a copy of the scotsman tomorrow we'll have all the latest from
08:14first minister's questions today and more details around the us ukraine minerals deal which was signed
08:21overnight uh will it be the problem solver and the significant next step to achieving peace in the war
08:29involving russia uh please uh tune in pick up a copy of that paper thanks to you alistair and thanks
08:35everyone else for joining us