Inquiry finds trust in Scottish Government damaged over A9 delays amid failure to agree funding
A draft inquiry report into the failure of the Scottish Government to complete the dualling of the A9 by 2025 has found that unless better funding arrangements are in place history could repeat itself.
A report in the Times, says the draft paper by the petitions committee was released to the Scottish Parliament due to an administrative error, so it has not been approved by the committee and could yet change.
But the conclusions reached in the draft paper by the committee found that a failure to agree how to fund the programme was among several causes that led to the decade-long delay in finishing the project.
And that failure and those delays have led to “damage to public trust” in the Scottish Government with the new soft deadline being 2035, a decade later than planned.
That sparked an ongoing campaign by The Inverness Courier calling the government to account and demanding a new deadline but despite the new programme only being announced last December it is already behind.
Showing just how vulnerable the project is to delays - the Tomatin to Moy section has not just risen in cost, it has skyrocketed and has been been delayed by up to six months.
The petitions committee launched an inquiry following a successful submission by A9 safety campaigner Laura Hansler that took evidence from senior SNP figures like former First Ministers Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf.
The petitions committee draft found that senior figures failed to agree how to fund the project and that failure “significantly contributed to progress stalling” during the procurement and construction stages.
That will spark serious questions from campaigners because no other infrastructure project in Scotland from the Queensferry Crossing to the Borders railway to the Aberdeen bypass suffered from such indecision.
The report said: “Given the delays and damage to public trust experienced on this programme to date, the committee asks that the Scottish government, in its response to this report, clearly sets out the key decision points for the rest of the A9 dualling programme.
“This should include details of key funding decisions, specifically dates when funding requires to be available or released.”
The vulnerability of the programme to delays and costs has already been seen as the opening of the newly announced Tomatin to Moy was pushed back by up to six months and the costs skyrocketed.
The report also suggests that there may have been a lack of leadership as there was no one person in charge of the project “whose main or only focus was to progress the A9 dualling programme”.
A Scottish parliament spokesman said: “This was an administrative error that was spotted quickly, and MSPs were reminded that the contents of the draft report are confidential.
“As with any draft report, the findings have, as yet, to be agreed by the committee. The final report will be published in due course.”
