Highlands & Islands MSP Dave Thompson has today welcomed the launch by the Law Commissions of Scotland, England and Wales of a joint consultation on how rail laws can be modernised and made safer.
The Law Commissions reported today that level crossings pose the largest single risk of train accidents, resulting in 13 deaths last year, and that until now the law has never been subject to a general review. It was also announced that a study on how much it would cost to replace dangerous crossings with bridges or tunnels will be undertaken.
At the beginning of this year Mr Thompson revealed the findings to his own Highland-wide consultation on level crossing perceptions, which confirmed 86% of the population wanted crossings upgraded with barriers and 77% stated they did not feel safe using them.
There are 128 unmanned open crossings in the UK - 23 of them are in Scotland and 21 of those are in Mr Thompson's Highlands & Islands Constituency. Commenting on today's announcement, he said:
"The Commissions today stated this is one of the most obscure branches of the law which needs to be brought out of the 19th century and into the modern world. I could not agree more. Anything which will save lives at level crossings is welcome and very necessary.
"Part of that modernisation includes a very sensible proposal in the consultation is to transfer the function of closing level crossings to Scottish Ministers. Indeed Ireland closed or upgraded all of their open crossings in the 1980's and it seems, as with drink driving laws, that the rest of the UK is having to catch up.
"Simplification is key to the future of rail law. There are so many bodies involved in the operation of our rail system and it would be extremely beneficial to reduce the number of organisations involved.
"It is imperative that residents with an opinion on rail crossing safety respond to this new consultation. I would encourage all Highland residents - who have to live with 91% of all the open crossings in Scotland - to take part. I have nearly 2,500 replies to my open crossings consultation which I will be forwarding onto the Commissions' consultation for consideration.
"I also look forward to the future results of the study announced today, which will identify costs to replace dangerous crossings. Public opinion has had to rely on a blanket figure of £1million to upgrade any crossing, which is turning out to be simply untrue. Each crossing is different and I am confident that many of the crossings in the Highlands will cost far less to upgrade.
Notes:
The full consultation can be found here.
Page 102 includes the recommendation:
8.116 We provisionally propose that under the new system for closure of level crossings, the function of making level crossing closure orders in relation to both public and private level crossings in Scotland should be transferred to the Scottish Ministers.
Dave is pictured above with hundreds of replies to his consultation last year, which will all be forwarded in his submission to the Law Commissions' consultation.
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