Meeting of the Parliament 02 November 2022
At the outset, I associate myself with all the comments that Liam McArthur made, in what was a well-informed contribution on the issues.
The A9 trunk road between Perth and Inverness has an unenviable reputation as Scotland’s most dangerous road. Over the years, we have seen too many serious accidents and fatalities, mostly on the single-carriageway sections of the route. As we have heard, this year has been one of the worst on record. In just 10 months, we have had 12 fatalities on single carriageways. Each one of those is a tragedy that has enormous knock-on consequences for the families and friends of those who are involved.
The issue is vital for my constituents in Perthshire who have to use the road daily. They know, as do I, how deadly it is. The matter also affects me personally. In 1990, the car that I was in was involved in a head-on collision on the A9 single carriageway near Carrbridge. I suffered multiple fractures and spent weeks in hospital. I was one of the lucky ones—I survived—but others have not been so fortunate. For decades now, I have been campaigning for A9 improvements, with petitions, at public meetings and by raising the issue in Parliament with successive ministers. It has been clear to me and to many others that only by completing the dualling of the road will we substantially reduce the accident risk.
I was therefore pleased when, in 2011, we saw the first real commitment from the SNP Government, in its infrastructure investment plan, to dual the road in its entirety as far as Inverness. Sadly, since then, progress has been slow. The A9 dualling programme was due to start in 2015 and to be completed by 2025. However, in the 11 years since that commitment was made, just 12.5 miles of dual carriageway has been opened—that is 12.5 miles in 15 years of SNP government. To put that in perspective, the Conservative Governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major opened 25.3 miles of dual carriageway between Perth and Inverness, which is more than twice as much. I know that Covid has caused delays to all infrastructure projects but, even with that, progress has been painfully slow.