Transport Minister Keith Brown has announced the first step in dualling the A9 from Perth to Inverness will begin in 2017.
On a whistle-stop visit on Tuesday to an exhibition in Perth that outlines the options for the £200 million project to dual the road between Luncarty and Birnam, Mr Brown confirmed the widely-anticipated start date for construction for this section.
The public exhibition in the Dewar’s Centre the first of three to be staged set out the design options for this vital scheme to improve the region’s main transport artery.
”This Government has announced its commitment to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness by 2025,” said Mr Brown. ”This is an ambitious target but one that underlines our commitment to connecting Scotland’s cities with a high-quality transport system that will generate economic growth.
”We have already invested £50 million on improvements between Perth and Inverness since 2007 and we now want to step up the work to make this vital strategic road fit for the 21st century in a confident, ambitious and connected Scotland.
”Transport Scotland is now progressing the necessary development work to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness. This work includes early engagement with key stakeholders and we expect to have more details on the next steps by the spring.
”This will include information on how we will engage with local communities and key organisations along the route to explain our plans. This will also include information on how we plan to address the route performance as a whole, bringing it up to a modern standard and improving other aspects such as its winter resilience, particularly on its highest and most exposed sections which are affected by severe weather.
”The Scottish Government has rightly earned a reputation for the successful delivery of major infrastructure projects and the dualling of the A9 is unprecedented in scale 80 miles of single carriageway to be dualled, making this 16 times the length of the M74 Completion project.
”Such infrastructure construction projects simply do not cannot happen overnight but, as these detailed exhibitions demonstrate, design work is already well under way to allow us to achieve the 2025 target.”
The minister added: “As a tangible sign of our commitment to dual the A9, I can announce that Transport Scotland is to undertake the next stage of detailed design work on the Luncarty to Birnam section with the intention of publishing the draft orders next year to allow construction to begin in 2017.
”Meaningful engagement with directly-affected communities and businesses is at the heart of the development of all of our major infrastructure projects and these exhibitions represent another example of this.”
The exhibition is at the Birnam Arts and Conference Centre from 11am to 7pm on Wednesday and in the Bankfoot Church Centre from 10am to 5pm on Friday.