Are we happy for remote corporations or executive bodies to decide things ‘on our behalf’?
Public services should be in public hands and should serve the public interest. We want accountable ownership of Highlands and Islands infrastructure with community empowerment and climate-change resilience built in, say the Scottish Green Party.
Too much public money is spent on major roads projects - like dualling the A9 and A96 routes - and the never-ending expansion of Inverness while rail improvements, essential road maintenance and remote and island communities are ignored. Meanwhile, improvements to the South Ford Causeway in the Uists (where a family of five died in a storm in 2005) and Argyll’s Rest and Be Thankful road, repairs to the Churchill Barriers in Orkney and a long-term solution to Wester Ross’s Stromeferry bypass rockfalls problem suffer delays and neglect by government.
Infrastructure is what makes society work; the physical structures that allow society to function. Some are as old as the hills - or at least the paths between them. Some are much more recent, like hydro dams and railways. Some are very new like broadband, and some are only just now being imagined.
The earliest infrastructure was created locally by communities living on the land: routes for trade, seaways to and between islands, paths up to the summer pastures. Ad hoc connections, changing as the people’s needs changed.
Historically, infrastructure in the Highlands and Islands was developed by landowners and central government deciding what was good for us, for profit or to subdue rebellious populations.
In recent years, much of what was made, and had become state-owned, has been sold off and asset-stripped. Decisions are now being made by corporations with little or no connection to the land or people of the Highlands and Islands.
Infrastructure is the glue that holds society together. But it also shapes society by what it does and does not do. Why does the railway go to Kyle not Ullapool? Why do we not have a national ferry network? Why do buses go only where profit can be made instead of where communities want them?
Who decides what kind of society is created by these decisions?
Are we happy for remote corporations or executive bodies to decide things ‘on our behalf’? In days gone by, our communities were battered by clearances and emigration or became bystanders as grazing lands became shooting estates and as massive forestry and hydro projects smothered and flooded the land – things were done to our lands, to (and sometimes for) our communities; but even now when communities and individuals expect to be involved in what affects them, empowerment is too often an illusion.
Who benefits from decisions made about infrastructure?
Who decides what is kept, what’s maintained, what’s developed, what’s allowed to rust or fade away? What criteria are used to make decisions - Profit? National importance? Vanity projects? It is rare to find local benefit as the top priority.
Who pays the cost of these decisions?
Communities tend to pay the cost. Rural and island communities are small and often vulnerable. They may have had many knockbacks in the past. It can be easy to overwhelm them with the offer of jobs or the threat to go elsewhere unless they roll over. But why should they?
Individuals lose from having to live with constant noise or pollution or the loss of land or amenity; and from the loss of control over their future, and the feeling – once again – of being dictated to.
And the environment usually pays as well; with habitats torn up or built on, landscapes changed, seas polluted.
Our Infrastructure is not future-proofed.
And then there’s climate change. Extreme weather events – storms, flooding, landslides, drought, wildfires – make much of our infrastructure much more vulnerable to disruption and the risk of accidents: cancelled flights and ferries, railways washed away, causeway closures, the endless sagas of the Rest And Be Thankful landslides and the Stromeferry road/rail rockfall blockages.
Much of our transport infrastructure follows the old lines and hugs the coast or glens, dependent on the sea remaining where it is. But the sea does not remain where we dictate, it always has and will encroach onto our roads and rail tracks and into our drains and sewers and buried services. This will only get worse and more common as climate change bites.
Damage isn’t ‘only’ financially expensive and especially in less-populated areas the ‘powers that be’ can decide they don’t want to pay the cost.
Constant threats of damage and disruption eat into community resilience and sap the human spirit. Will the bus get through to school? Will the ferry bring supplies? Will I get my mum to hospital in time? It makes it harder to run a business if you can’t guarantee deliveries or stable internet connection or the safety of your workforce.
The Democratic Deficit
Around the Highlands and Islands the specific issues may be different, but the common thread is that people feel excluded and ignored.
We do not have the democratic infrastructure that we need for communities to be true and effective stakeholders with a real say. Community councils are toothless, local authorities have been hollowed out, and we see very little strategic rural and island development support – the support for development communities actually want.
It has been left to communities to create development trusts or to buy their own land in order to have any say in our own futures. Far too many people in the Highlands and Islands are ill-served by infrastructure which increasingly points inwards to Inverness or outwards to distant boardrooms.
What are the solutions?
We need the major ‘life and limb’ infrastructure to be owned by the nation, designed and managed for users, where any profits serve communities not shareholders. Ferries, railways, electricity, telecoms, ports, airports as well as roads must be governed by democratically-accountable bodies whose duties are to the welfare of the country and the needs of our communities. And the absolute overriding need for our country, our people, our infrastructure to be ready to survive and weather all that climate change will throw our way. In short, public services, in public hands, serving the public interest.
We want more active travel, joined up with integrated publicly-owned carbon-free ferries, trains, and buses. We demand proper maintenance of vital rural roads, not wasteful new road projects. We want a fair, universal, postal and delivery service where communities do not pay massive extra tariffs for deliveries in the Highlands and Islands. We want communities to be fully consulted on any new renewable energy or infrastructure projects and for them always to benefit financially from these projects – at least as much as other investors.
But how will we decide?
If something is obviously very damaging to the environment or significantly adds to greenhouse gas emissions, then there has to be a better way.
If something clearly harms the communities it sits within or passes through, then there has to be a better way.
If something makes profits for remote shareholders but not for locals, then there has to be a better way.
And if something costs so much that by doing so prevents greener and pro-social opportunities, then there has to be a better way.
Very few infrastructure projects, structures, or systems are so obviously damaging or obviously beneficial across the board on all criteria but we want to have far better ways of deciding what and how and where and why; ways that prioritise our environment and our communities far far higher than at present. Sometimes the better way is not to do it at all.
So much anger and frustration and stress can be avoided if we have strong systems that give powers to communities and actually value our precious environment. We all need to build a resilient and vigorous network of communities who can separately and together adapt to and thrive in a rapidly-changing climate.
The alternative is more decline, more disruption, more fear and loss, more heartache, more expense, more centralisation, more waste of hope and opportunity.
Support Green politicians in our councils and parliaments. Only the Scottish Greens are demanding the combination of accountable ownership, community empowerment, and climate change resilience that will build our collective fair green future.