Introductory Presentation

Isabel Glasgow, Chair of Firth of Clyde Forum, was regrettably unable to chair the Firth of Clyde Forum Annual Conference due to the sudden serious illness of a family friend. She sent her sincere apologies and best wishes for the day.

Karen Wright, Scottish Natural Heritage and Chair, Firth of Clyde Forum Core Group, introduced the event in her place and her introductory presentation forms the introduction to the website conference proceedings.

Welcome

First of all I would like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone on behalf of the Firth of Clyde Forum. We are very pleased to see so many of you here today - a very good sign that this is going to be a very interesting and stimulating day. Indeed where would be more appropriate to hold a conference on sustainable transport on the Clyde than on this magnificent and fascinating vessel, the Tall Ship?

Brief Introduction to Clyde Forum

Just to give you some background, the Firth of Clyde Forum was established in 1994 as a voluntary coastal management partnership set up in response to Government support for integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). Funding support is provided by SNH, Scottish Enterprise, SEPA, the Crown Estate and the Ayrshire Joint Structure Plan team, with in-kind funding from the Glasgow and Clyde Valley Structure Plan team. The work of the Forum is undertaken by the Project Officer, Julia MacPherson, who most of you will know by now, supported by a Steering Core Group made up of the funding bodies and other key partners. Forum membership is now up to a magnificent total of some 250 individuals and organisations.

I don't propose to go into detail now about the range of activities undertaken by the Forum. But what I will say is that each year the Forum tries to arrange a conference to discuss an importance issue on the Clyde. Two years ago we held a very successful conference on Flooding, an issue in which the Forum maintains a keen interest. This year the topic is integrated transport in the Clyde and before passing on to others, I would just like to say a few words and provide an outline of the forthcoming day.

Transport

Transport is of interest to us all, on a global scale, nationally, and at regional and local levels. Transport touches economic, social and environmental aspects of our lives:

• economics - through freight transport - movement of resources and waste at global, national and local levels
• public transport - providing passenger and commuter links - eg ferries, trains, buses
• connecting communities - particularly island and coastal communities - ferries
• health and recreation - eg cycling to work or for pleasure, sailing and boating
• climate change - vehicle emissions CO2

We thus cannot get away from the fact that we all need transport, and have done for centuries, but the question now is whether our current transport systems are sustainable and how we can exploit the potential for developing effective and more integrated systems. Get this right and not only can we satisfy everyone's needs, but also contribute to economic, social and environmental regeneration of cities, towns and communities.

But to do this effectively we need to encourage positive communication, cooperation and coordination between all parties and stakeholders. By arranging this event on the Tall Ship today, the Forum hopes to do its bit to help achieve this and add impetus to what is already being achieved in the context of the Firth of Clyde.

I think you will all agree that we can look forward to an extremely interesting programme here and one which will stimulate a great deal of thought and debate. Time permitting there will be opportunities to raise issues and questions throughout the day, but hopefully these will continue long past the close of this conference.

Thank you