COLIN Kerr (“To the Borders and beyond dream is revived by reopened railway line”, Agenda”, The Herald, September 9) wants a study to provide arguments for extending the new Borders railway but not, seemingly, for those against it. That there is such he seems not to know.
Even if a sound case is made for a project it must be asked whether the funds needed might be better used in other ways. Audit Scotland said that these "opportunity costs" were not properly examined in projects such as the new Forth Bridge and the Borders Railway. The Institute for Economic Affairs said the latter was poor value for money. Many in the region thought that there were better ways to spend this money.
That this costly rail project was built in an area with about one per cent of Scotland's population, very few of whom are deprived, was due to political pressure based on emotion and nostalgia, not hard facts and analysis. Mr Kerr's case for extension is similar.
If more railways are to be built they should be in other regions where there is certainly far greater need, and only where rigorous study has justified them and other uses for scarce funds have been examined.
The Scottish Government wants a new high-speed track to Glasgow and Edinburgh, and is willing to pay for it. To also finance a new route through the Borders would surely be ludicrous in the extreme, especially when essential services are facing severe cuts.
Walter Markham,
75 Atholl Road, Pitlochry.
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