Skye Bridge

The Skye Bridge is a road bridge over Loch Alsh, connecting the mainland of Scotland with the Isle of Skye. It forms part of the A87.

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.

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 the government requested tenders to construct a toll bridge, with the contract being awarded to Miller-Dywidag, a Scottish/German construction consortium. 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. Construction began in 1992 and the bridge was opened 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. Many Skye residents believed that, as the bridge is connected to the public road network, no toll should be charged. Although originally cheaper than the ferry it replaced, the bridge's tolls subsequently increased, and were said to be the highest in Europe - in 2004 a round trip for a car cost £11.40, fourteen times the round-trip price charged by the Forth Road Bridge (a crossing over twice the length). Opposition, 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. Numerous opponents were cited for refusing to pay the toll, with around 500 being arrested and 130 subsequently convicted of nonpayment.

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. 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 [1] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3772871.stm). 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 [2] (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4112085.stm). During the preceding decade £33 million in tolls had been collected.

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.

External links

• Skye Bridge homepage (http://www.skye-bridge.co.uk/)
• SKAT homepage (http://www.skat.org.uk/)
• Undiscovered Scotland's page on the bridge (http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/skye/bridge/)
• Eilean Bàn / White island (http://www.eileanban.org) the island between Kyleakin and Kyle of Lochalsh that the bridge is partly built on, home to the Lighthouse built by David Stevenson and Thomas Stevenson, and the Gavin Maxwell museumde:Skye-Bridge