Public 'played for fools' over A9 2025 deadline

The “electorate have been played as fools” over the A9 as a former chartered engineer claims that fresh analysis shows the original 2025 commitment has been “unachievable” since 2011.

That is according to Inverness-based George Rennie, a retired chartered engineer who held a number of senior management positions in a major international consultancy.

He argues that if Transport Scotland maintains the same rate of construction for dualling the A9 as it has up until now then the remaining sections of the road will not be finished until 2056 – a wait of 33 years.

His assessment comes as the A9 and A96 dualling looks set to play a major role in the upcoming campaign for leadership of the SNP after candidate Ash Regan said the programme must be a “top priority”.

Mr Rennie analysed how much work had been done, the pace at which it was completed and also did some cost analysis work based on the sections of road that had been dualled.

He said: “Two sections of the 11 have been constructed. The Kincraig to Dalraddy section is 4.7 miles in length and took 28 months to complete (from June 2015 to September 2017) equating to six months of construction for each mile constructed.

“The Luncarty to Pass of Birnam section is 5.9 miles in length and took 30 months to complete (from February 2019 to August 2021) equating to 5.1 months of construction for each mile constructed.

“Combining the two sections, 10.6 miles of road took 58 months to complete which equates to 5.5 months per mile. There are 72.5 miles of dialling yet to start. At 5.5 months per mile, that will take 33 years and two months.”

But he added that is “based on only one section being undertaken at a time” but if “two sections are constructed simultaneously while there would be greater disruption to traffic, the time would be reduced to 16 years and seven months”.

That assessment is supported by reports elsewhere which put the end date to dualling at somewhere around 2050 but that means only one thing and it is bad news for the SNP.

Mr Rennie said: “The implication of this is that there was no substance behind the original commitment to complete the upgrading by 2025.

"Even when the SNP manifesto commitment was made in 2011, it was not possible to achieve and, by 2015 when the first construction started, it was clearly unachievable.

“I assumed that there was a base schedule for the programme. I now cannot see that there could have been. A Freedom of Information request might clarify this but it does seem to me that the commitment to complete the work by 2025 was simply a political slogan and there has been no delivery plan developed to achieve it.

He added: “Put simply, the electorate have been played as fools.”

There was some good news in that the project should be more affordable than the government claims, Mr Rennie said: “The average cost per mile of road based on the sections completed is around £12.4 million.

“On that basis the construction cost for the entire 83-mile project would be just over £1 billion.

"Allowing for preliminary work, design fees, land acquisition, and inflation, the overall £3 billion budget seems comfortable.”

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