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Meeting of the Parliament 22 May 2013

22 May 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Haudagain Roundabout

Baker, Richard Lab North East Scotland Watch on SPTV

That is both a poor excuse and a gross misrepresentation of the issue. I will specifically address the ludicrous press release that Mr Stewart issued yesterday later in my speech. That will give him time to reflect on just how idiotic that contribution was.

It is vital to our business reputation that visitors can have ease of access to the city centre for the meetings that they are in Aberdeen to attend, but all too often they encounter long traffic jams at the Haudagain, with the result that their journey from the airport into town takes almost as long as their flight. Because of Aberdeen’s importance to oil and gas and the wider energy industry, it receives thousands of business visitors each year. If Aberdeen is to secure its future as an energy hub and to have businesses that want to base their operations in the city, there has to be better access from the airport.

In 2005, the feasibility study into proposals for improvements at the Haudagain that was commissioned by the then Labour-led Scottish Executive was published, but when the SNP came to power the Haudagain was notable by its absence from the party’s first infrastructure investment plan. That was despite the fact that in previous parliamentary sessions SNP members had lodged a number of motions calling for immediate action at the Haudagain, some of which were lodged as long as ago as 2005 and 2006 and included notable signatories such as Mr Swinney and Mr Neil, who, during his tenure as Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, failed to lift a finger to get on with work at the Haudagain.

Despite the SNP’s calling for immediate action nearly 10 years ago, I note that when I lodged a question to ask Mr Brown for the latest timescale I was informed that work at the Haudagain would not begin until after the completion of the AWPR and would take nine months to complete. At the most ambitious end of the Scottish Government’s timetable, it will be 2019 before work at the Haudagain is completed. We know now that when SNP members call for immediate action, they mean action some time within the next 20 years.

At the heart of SNP ministers’ appallingly sluggish approach to this transport policy has been their refusal to begin work at the roundabout before the AWPR’s completion. Refusing to start work on the Haudagain before the bypass has been completed has allowed the protracted court process over the AWPR to lead to more years of delay on the Haudagain. That situation was entirely avoidable; indeed, before they were in government, SNP members specifically called for work on the Haudagain to take place before the AWPR’s completion, not least because when the project is completed the Haudagain will be entirely on detrunked roads that are the responsibility not of Scottish ministers but of the local council and local council tax payers.

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Meeting of the Parliament 22 May 2013

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