EXPLAINED: Why we sent the Scottish Government action points on the A9 dualling
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The Transport Scotland response to action points The Inverness Courier sent to the Scottish made clear what it would and would not commit to regarding a range of issues.
Raised repeatedly is the issue of trust and confidence in the government's ability to deliver – whether the response from Transport Scotland does that is a decision locals.
Previously we reported that local confidence in the government had fallen off a cliff as some of those at the summit said they expect to be dead before the dualling is finished.
The nine points we sent to the government concerned the dualling programme itself and safety.
All nine action points we sent to the government were based on issues raised with us by readers, road safety experts, politicians and councillors.
To understand what prompted the call for more government action, here are some of the views and some of the calls that were aired at the summit back in July.
Convener of Highland Council and Badenoch and Strathspey Councillor Bill Lobban:
“My community is sick and fed up of seeing body bags being taken off the A9 – the actual cost of this road is not in pounds, shillings, or pence – the actual cost in this road is the number of people who lose their lives, for no reason.
“You should not lose your life on the A9 because you make a mistake and the way to prevent that is by dualling it from Perth to Inverness and beyond.”
“So I am not particularly impressed and I am now not convinced that the A9 will be dualled in my lifetime. I didn’t hear anything of substance, at least not from those who were responding to the questions.
“I want to see an exact timescale with a commitment but we have had those before so why should we believe the next line of commitments or do we have to wait until the next election when they need to gather votes in or do we have to wait for the next referendum so there is more votes to be had by dualling the A9?
“I think we deserve an accurate timetable now with no nonsense.”
Jane Cumming, former chairwoman of Highlands and Islands Committee of the SCDI:
“If ever Transport Scotland were in any doubt about the depth of feeling there is up here, then they are under no illusion now. It was very, very clear.
“I don’t think I will be alive when it is dualled. I remember when they worked out that it would be 2025 and I worked out that that was going to more or less coincide by the time of my retirement because I used to have to drive up and down that road probably two or three times a week.
“And I thought, well it is never going to get dualled until I retire and now I don’t think it will be dualled until I am dead, I will be long dead and gone before it gets dualled.
“I like to think they might look at some of the short-term safety measures about the signage or the speed. I run a tourism business and that is probably the single most prominent question I get asked – what is the speed limit on the A9? – and that is not coming from foreign people who don’t speak English – that is coming from Canadians, Americans.
“It is just something so simple and they think they should be going at 50mph because it is the only speed sign that they see at any point yet that only applies to lorries so they don’t understand what speed a car can go at.”
George Rennie, a retired consulting engineer:
“Well, to be honest, I think the cabinet secretary speaks well but she'll be here today and gone tomorrow – there have been so many different cabinet secretaries.
“Transport Scotland seems to be a bureaucracy and their processes are what controls progress.
“I think if we really want to see progress we should be requiring that our program management office is established in Inverness with the authority to drive this project forward on behalf of the government and its agency.”
Laura Hansler, A9 Dual Action Group:
"Until we actually have some tangible evidence that there’s a firm commitment to get on with the job at hand, and until I see heavy construction in place, I am not holding my breath.
"The government is still trying to garner support by these fanfare announcements of small pockets of money, and spending on useless and expensive roads signs that tell you to 'drive on the left' when ironically these can only be viewed if you’re indeed driving on the left.
"Is that really the best we can do?"
