A CONTROVERSIAL pounds-700 million plan to build a second road bridge across the Firth of Forth is being sidelined, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The Forth Estuary Transport Authority (Feta) is proposing to drop its "full-scale commitment" to a new bridge and is instead urging immediate improvements in public transport. This is in line with suggestions made privately by the Scottish Executive.

Documents obtained by the Sunday Herald under the Freedom of Information Act show that Feta has had to rewrite its transport strategy because of opposition to a new bridge. As a result, the chances of a second crossing being built at Queensferry have receded by at least a decade.

Feta held a major consultation exercise last year on its draft strategy which proposed a new "multi-modal crossing" which would improve public transport. This was opposed by the City of Edinburgh Council and environmental groups, who saw it as a "Trojan Horse" for a new road bridge, which would increase traffic.

To help it decide what to do, Feta, which brings together four local authorities around the Forth, was keen to know what the Scottish Executive thought. But executive officials were initially reluctant to say.

"I have no intention of offering a view on whether a new bridge is a good idea at this stage, " said Keith Main from the Executive's Road Policy and Group Finance Division in an internal memo last October.

However, in an e-mail to colleagues on February 4 this year, he became less coy. In discussions with Feta, he said that Executive officials had "opined" that a strategy that fell short of a "full-scale commitment" to a new bridge "might be more acceptable".

A few days later, a meeting of Feta's management group of officials heard that the transport strategy had been revised to downgrade the priority given to a new bridge.

Instead, it focused on "intensive public transport" and promised only studies on a "possible" new crossing.

The Scottish Executive confirmed last week that its officials had favoured that course of action during meetings with Feta in February. "But it was also a possibility being discussed by others, " said an Executive spokeswoman. "The opinion expressed was, of course, just that. It did not, and does not, constitute 'pressure' from the Executive."

The decision to recommend the revised strategy was one that was taken within Feta.

The Executive does not have any "current plans" for a new bridge, the spokeswoman added. "There is still a great deal of work to be done before the options for, or indeed a case for, a bridge can be firmed up."

The new transport strategy drawn up within Feta is due to be discussed at the next meeting of its board on April 29.

One of those on the board is Andrew Burns, the transport leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, who said: "Edinburgh Council has always taken the consistent view that certain measures to help cope with the growth in cross-Forth traffic should be put in place now, before any longer-term commitment to a second roadcrossing of the Forth."

The measures included doubling the size of the parkand-ride site at Ferry Toll, building a Rosyth link road and completing the A8000/M9 spur upgrade.

The strategy now being proposed by Feta puts these projects ahead of any commitment to a second bridge.