Transport secretary confirms three bids received for Tomatin to Moy A9 dualling contract
The contract to dual the Tomatin to Moy section of the A9 will be awarded in the next month, Scotland’s transport secretary has confirmed.
Cabinet secretary for transport, Fiona Hyslop MSP, said three bids have been received for the work to upgrade the six-mile stretch of road.
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Transport Scotland say the project is expected to take around three years to build.
Ms Hyslop spoke at a Conservative-led a debate at Holyrood on the topic of “improving Scotland’s roads” yesterday.
The SNP MSP was responding to claims from Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson, who branded Scotland’s roads as “not fit for purpose due to 17 years of SNP neglect”.
He added: “The SNP’s failure to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness is a shameful betrayal of the local communities that rely on Scotland’s deadliest road.
“There were 144 deaths on Scotland’s major trunk roads that go outside the central belt between 2020 and 2023 – and 104 of those were on sections that were not dualled.”
Ms Hyslop said: “The SNP Government has made significant investments to improve Scotland’s road network in recent years. Projects that have already been delivered include the Queensferry crossing, the M8 motorway improvements and the Aberdeen western peripheral route, which are delivering tangible benefits to lives across the country on a daily basis.
“Labour and the Conservatives speculated about those projects for decade after decade, but they never delivered them. This SNP Government has delivered them.”
She added: “The delivery plan sets out a realistic and achievable timetable for completion, balancing market capacity, the impacts on road users and the availability of funding. The approach means that the Highlands can have confidence that this Government will deliver the dualling in full.
“In May, we published the contract notice for the fourth section, from the Tay crossing to Ballinluig. We expect to award the contract for that project in summer 2025. We will also shortly complete the procurement process for the Tomatin to Moy project. I am pleased to inform members that three tender submissions were received on 31 May and we expect to award the contract for that project in July.”
Ms Hyslop also called upon the incoming UK administration to hold an emergency budget to enable an extension to capital spending.
She said: “The UK Government’s spring budget, however, falls far short of what we need in order to deliver all the improvements that we would like to make to Scotland’s infrastructure. That is why, in the UK election, we are calling for an emergency budget to address the hole of more than £1.3 billion in Scotland’s capital budget.”
