Meeting of the Parliament 13 November 2024
That budget of £30 million extra was supported by every group on the council. However, with regard to Dumfries and Galloway Council, we have had Conservative administrations for an awful lot longer than we have had Labour, or other party, administrations. The consequence of that is a staggering £250 million in the backlog for repairs in Dumfries and Galloway alone. That is not a legacy of which Finlay Carson should be particularly proud.
In Conservative-run Scottish Borders Council, the roads repair bill is about £123 million, which is a leap from £97 million the previous year. In South Ayrshire, the backlog bill has also risen, to nearly £51 million—again, that is a Conservative-led administration. That is not a legacy that we should be celebrating.
However, it is not just on local roads that rural communities see the consequences of cuts. Often, important trunk roads that cut across rural areas—no matter how strategically important they are—have suffered from chronic underinvestment, which makes them dangerous, hampers economic progress and actually slows efforts to improve the environment.
For example, we can take the A75 and the A77, which are key routes to the ferry terminal at Cairnryan—the fifth busiest port in the UK. It is the hub from which businesses not just in South Scotland, but in central Scotland and northern England, trade into Northern Ireland and then south into the European Union.
The need to upgrade the A75 and the A77 is, at its heart, about saving lives, but it is about improving them, too. Bypassing the towns and villages through which the roads currently run would cut congestion and emissions, from Springholm and Crocketford to Girvan and Kirkoswald.
However, two years after the much-delayed second strategic transport projects review was published, there is still no delivery plan from the Scottish Government, even for the very modest and inadequate improvements that are proposed to both roads, and there is not a single penny of the investment that was promised for upgrading, either.
The only investment that has been proposed in relation to the A75 is the £5 million that was announced in the recent UK Government budget to complete a feasibility study into possible upgrades. I hope that, in her closing comments, the cabinet secretary will say when that study will be carried out.
I also urge the cabinet secretary, when she meets members of the A77 action group later this month, to listen to their call for a task force to bring together local stakeholders, Transport Scotland and Amey Highways to explore what more can be done to better manage road closures on both roads when maintenance is being carried out.
Everyone understands that some closures are needed for road safety reasons. However, when the closure is in a rural location, the diversion is often lengthy and drives traffic on to small rural roads, which are simply not built for HGVs, causing damage and disruption to communities.
Above all else, I hope that the cabinet secretary will set out when we will see a clear delivery and investment plan for those two key rural roads, which will save lives, grow our economy and improve the environment in the towns and villages across the south-west.
18:21