Nairn bypass by 2030? I’m not convinced that we won’t get more excuses in 5 years’ time
Nairn-based retired journalist Donald Wilson reflects on last night’s Build the Bypass event organised by The Inverness Courier.
Passions were inevitably running high when Scottish transport secretary Fiona Hyslop entered the lion’s den at the United Reformed Church on Friday to update us on the Nairn bypass.
Are we any further forward? I fear not.
Was it really reassuring when Lawrence Shackman, a civil servant from the Scottish Government, was pressed by host Nicky Marr about how long it would take if they ‘pulled its finger out’ - my words.... not hers - he said it could actually deliver the long overdue dualling of the carriageway by 2030. I think not.
• Scottish Government is preparing to buy land to dual Inverness to Nairn on the A96
The transport secretary may have been forgiven had she appeared centre stage sporting a combat jacket and tin hat. She rolled up with an entourage of officials to hear for themselves the feelings of locals frustrated, angered and I’m sure there are many more adjectives you’d care to mention.
The raw emotions of the audience were evident as they articulated the issues caused by having a trunk road passing through our town...lives lost unnecessarily, future planning halted, school pupils and residents impacted by choking fumes from traffic at a standstill, safety issues caused by rat runs through Cawdor and Auldearn and streets in the Fishertown and west end. I could go on.
Despite the transport chief’s statement that we were facing challenging financial times laying the blame on the doorstep of the Westminster government, her SNP colleague and local MSP Fergus Ewing was having none of it.
‘There’s plenty of money,’ he protested. The problem was the cash was all being spent on roads and infrastructure in the Central Belt. ‘Well it’s our turn now!’ he demanded.
To be fair to the minister, she is to be commended for attending the showdown when it would have been easy for her to cry off after the calling of a General Election by Rishi Sunak.
That announcement and the government in Westminster being dissolved the day before the gathering at the URC meant politicians and civil servants are governed by ‘purdah’ which means they cannot make any new announcements seen to be advantageous to parties.
So what did we get from the meeting?
It was confirmed that the ‘made orders’ for the bypass had gone through unchallenged. So that was a starting point...albeit three years behind schedule!
The government can now go ahead with the purchase of land. But that takes time.
The minister also gave an assurance that ‘nothing was off the table’ in terms of building the new road between Nairn and Inverness...ie the Nairn bypass being given priority.
And there was a reassurance that the government would look again at the frequency of breakdowns of our not-fit-for-purpose traffic light system on the main road through town which only adds to chaos and frustration of drivers and pollution.
Other than that, I did not hear much to bring me comfort that this long overdue infrastructure is remotely on the horizon.
I personally made the point that great emphasis is being placed on the need to upgrade the A9. And I get that for road safety and economic reasons. But in the 110-mile stretch of carriageway between Perth and Inverness every town and village is already bypassed. Nowhere is such a large population so affected by the intrusion of large volumes of cars and lorries often brought to a standstill choking the atmosphere and presenting dangers that would be immediately mitigated by the building of this road.
In a lighter moment, asked if he feared the party whip, Fergus Ewing, quoting Rhett Butler from the film classic Gone With the Wind responded “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”. For me, the most important statement came from our MSP pretty much saying it’s simply down the political will of the Scottish Government if they are willing to commit their slice of Westminster funding to this project.
Had so much money not been wasted on the ill-fated ferry projects, which I assume came from the same transport budget, by now we could have a Nairn bypass with bells on.
I’d like to have left the meeting believing we won’t find ourselves back where we were on Friday night with another update five years from now, receiving more platitudes and excuses. I didn’t.
