Hansard

I congratulate Mary Scanlon on securing the debate. As a North East Scotland MSP, I am particularly pleased that her motion notes the need for bypasses for other towns along the A96 corridor as well.

"We are all paying for the lack of investment in our roads network at the hands of the Labour/Liberal Government".

Those are not my words but those of the First Minister during the Holyrood election campaign in May 2007. During that election, the Scottish National Party pledged to lead a step change to bring our beleaguered transport network into the 21st century, including the dualling of the A96 and A90. I hope that that pledge will soon be acted on.

Scottish Conservatives have a long-standing commitment to the dualling of the A96 and a positive record of delivering for the communities that the road serves. For the record, the previous Conservative Government delivered the Huntly, Inverurie and Kintore bypasses, as well as the dualling of the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverurie, as the starting point for the dualling of the road between Aberdeen and Inverness.

Like my Highlands and Islands Conservative colleagues, I support the call for a bypass for the city of Elgin. The recent announcements on progressing the bypasses at Fochabers and Mostoddloch are welcome. However, those developments alone, which were already in Transport Scotland's road infrastructure programme prior to last May, do not go far enough to address the dangers of the A96 or the transport infrastructure improvements that are desperately needed by Elgin and the communities along the A96 corridor.

I recently contacted Transport Scotland to find out what timescale the new SNP Government had set out to undertake a study into dualling the A96. Its response stated:

"MTRIPS is undertaking a study into the dualling of the A96 between Inverness and Inverness Airport".

There was no mention of any other dualling studies on the A96. Anyone who regularly uses the road will agree that it is a joke that the main road connecting the two great cities of Aberdeen and Inverness grinds to a halt at the bottleneck at the Inveramsay bridge, north of Inverurie. That situation will soon get even worse, with the instalment of another two sets of traffic lights in Keith, solely for the access to the new Tesco store in the town.

As I said, the recent announcements on the Fochabers and Mosstodloch bypasses are welcome. However, welcome as those are for the Moray communities, they expose the greater need for the community of Keith to have a bypass. In fact, just glancing at a map of the north-east, what shows up starkly is that only the communities of Keith, Elgin and Nairn are without bypasses. Just over a year ago, prior to the election, I lodged a motion calling on the previous Scottish Executive to reinstate plans for a Keith bypass. I was pleased that my motion attracted cross-party support, including that of fellow North East Scotland MSP Maureen Watt. Scottish Conservatives would like the SNP Government to right the wrongs of the previous Lib Dem-Labour Scottish Executive and reinstate the plans for a Keith bypass that were proposed by the previous Conservative Government.

I hope that when he responds, the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change will be able to announce that he will start the process to support a bypass for Elgin and instruct Transport Scotland to undertake a study into the dualling of the A96. I hope that he will, at the very least, agree to meet me and other local representatives in Keith to discuss the reinstatement of the plans for a Keith bypass as a transport priority for the north-east of Scotland.