PLANS FOR a new hourly rail service between Arbroath and Perth, including building an additional station in Dundee, are to be put to the Scottish Executive, writes Brian Allison, local government reporter.

An extensive survey of the local and regional rail network has been carried out over the past four years by Dundee City Council in partnership with Perth and Kinross, Angus and Fife councils and Scottish Enterprise Tayside.

Now the partners are in a position to put the conclusions of the Tay Estuary Rail Study to the Executive, which partly funded the study.

A meeting, which will also involve First ScotRail and Network Rail, is due to take place in the new year.

Among the aims of the study were:

Encouraging transfer of trips from car to rail and improving bus/rail integration.

Ensuring that the network of services reflects the needs of local people.

Enhancing train services on local, short-distance movements while ensuring that inter-regional and national services are not impeded.

A spokesman for the city council said the proposals to be put to the Executive include a new rail service, with an approximately hourly frequency, between Arbroath and Perth stopping at Carnoustie, Monifieth, Broughty Ferry, Dundee, and a new station in the west of Dundee.

The new station would probably be west of the airport and would be able to link in with the significant passenger potential of Ninewells Hospital and the Technology Park.

As well as the new Dundee West station, the study envisages upgrading of each of the stations on the Arbroath-Perth route.

Around £4 million would be needed to build Dundee West while some £1.6 million would go on improving the existing main Dundee station.

It is also intended that several other stations—Montrose, Leuchars, Cupar and Ladybank—would be upgraded although they are not part of the proposed new service.

The overall cost of the upgrade programme is put at around £12.5 million and the funding would have to come from the Executive.

“All this can be overlaid on top of the existing rail services and should not interfere with them. There is local spare capacity,” the spokesman said.

He said the proposals had been endorsed as a priority by the new regional transport partnership, which will comprise Dundee, Angus, Perth and Kinross and Stirling councils.