Meeting of the Parliament 02 November 2022
I think that Mr Simpson makes a fair assertion. If he does not mind, I will come to that later in my remarks.
We have made that investment and, this year, we will make further investments to improve safety at Ballinluig, Bruar and Ralia. However, I accept that more will need to be done before full dualling is complete.
The Government remains committed to investment in the A9, including dualling the road between Perth and Inverness. As I mentioned, we have already invested significant finance—approximately £431 million to date—delivering the dualling programme. That has allowed road users to benefit from the dualled stretches between Kincraig and Dalraddy and between Luncarty and Pass of Birnam, which opened in September 2017 and August 2021 respectively. It has also supported the development, progress through statutory processes, advance works and procurement evaluation work being undertaken for the remainder of the programme.
We are currently in procurement for the award of the construction contract for the section between Tomatin and Moy. Final decisions on that will be subject to our normal tender evaluation and business case approval. We are also progressing design work on the rest of the programme, with the statutory process being well under way for seven of the eight remaining sections.
The Pass of Birnam to Tay crossing project has not started the statutory process yet, but Transport Scotland is currently progressing the design and assessment work to identify the preferred route option for that section, following the innovative co-creative process with the local community. Further, work is on-going to determine the most suitable procurement options for those remaining sections of the road, which needs to involve consideration of a range of factors, including how the project can be delivered most efficiently by the industry while minimising disruption to road users. I hope that the wider MSP forum that my private office has contacted members about today will seek to set out to members some of the detail of those sections.
I turn to the A96. As Mr Simpson noted, there has not been a similar increase in accidents on the A96—he pointed out one fatality this year. It is worth saying that we are talking about very different roads, but it remains the Government’s commitment to fully dual the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen.