A £13 million bid to clear a major traffic-choked junction on Perth’s western edge could be driven through next week.
Perth and Kinross Council is desperate to make major alterations to the roads infrastructure at the A9/A85 interchange to unlock nearby parcels of land for development.
The controversial £13 million scheme would see major changes to St Johnstone’s home, McDiarmid Park, with the removal of the North Stand to make way for the new road network.
A planning application to carry out the work to ”improve traffic flows and facilitate long term strategic development opportunities in the north and west of Perth, while reducing congestion on the interchange and associated local and strategic trunk road networks” will be considered by council on Wednesday.
The project is deemed ”crucial” to the future of Perth’s ongoing development.
The proposed scheme would see the creation of a flyover between the A9 and A85 to the north of the existing interchange.
New distributor roads would be built providing connections between the A85 Crieff Road and the A9 and another between the A9 and A85 and routes into Perth city centre to the east.
The plan also features the incorporation of a new dedicated pedestrian and cycle crossing over the A9, as well as the diversion of the Perth Town Lade and new culverts under the dual carriageway.
A report by planning chiefs to go before the council’s development management committee states: ”The proposed link is seen as the vital first stage and catalyst in a wider transport strategy for Perth.
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”The strategy includes plans for a third crossing of the Tay, the Cross Tay Link Road (CTLR), that will remove through traffic from the major congestion areas of Bridgend and Inveralmond, as well as freeing up the city centre.
”The A85/A9 junction upgrade will also provide much needed relief for the Inveralmond area as well as providing a much improved solution to the problems currently faced on the Crieff Road corridor.
”This will, in turn, allow for expansion of the Inveralmond industrial area and allow the council to realise the development aspirations contained within the current and emerging development plan.
”It is difficult to overstate just how important, indeed crucial, this major investment in transport infrastructure is to the future economic prosperity of Perth.”
The report also outlines the potential change to St Johnstone’s ground, reducing the capacity to around 9,500.
With an average gate of less than half that in the season past, it is not deemed a problem by the club.
The report states: ”The grade separated interchange is located in such a manner that a new eastern link road will pass to the north of McDiarmid Park requiring removal or part removal of the north stand.
”A new roundabout will then be created on the eastern link road providing a new access into St Johnstone Football Club car park.
”A further link road will lead south to join up with the A85 at the existing entrance with the crematorium, with another roundabout proposed.”
St Johnstone’s involvement in the application was criticised by some locals when it first emerged but former chairman Geoff Brown was at pains to point out why it had agreed to such a potentially radical proposal.
He said: ”St Johnstone FC own only a very small part of the area under construction but we are co-operating to the extent necessary to enable a section of the proposed road to pass through our land, and this will involve sacrificing some of it for the solum of the road and the North Stand part of which may be reconstructed once the land requirements are more accurately known.
”Any financial benefits will flow directly, and only, to the football club, which is in my view is a community facility.”