HES say role is same as Historic Scotland

A spokesperson for Historic Environment Scotland responded to Mr Rattray’s claims, saying:“HES’s role as consultation body for a Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is to give advice to the relevant decision maker, in this case Scottish Ministers, through established processes for its national remit.

“This mirrors the role of Historic Scotland at the planning and design stage of trunk road projects. For the A9 dualling proposal, impacts on the historic environment were considered as part of the EIA process.

“Transport Scotland published an environmental statement with the draft road orders and HES, other statutory consultees and the public were consulted.

“HES objected to the proposed development and has recommended that Transport Scotland undertakes further work within the inventory battlefield.

“We will be meeting Transport Scotland.”

A Transport Scotland spokesperson added:“As the existing A9 already runs through the site of the battlefield, any of the dual carriageway widening options, for example widening the existing road on its northbound side or widening the existing road on its southbound side, will have some impact on the battlefield.

“We have therefore carefully developed our plans to dual the route between Killiecrankie to Glen Garry taking into account available research and specialist advice. We will now consider all comments received during the consultation period as we further develop our plans for this section of the A9.

“The route through the battlefield has been developed using the available interpretation of the battle.

“As for all the projects in this ambitious dualling programme, we have allowed for the need for a Public Local Inquiry, so should one be needed it will have no impact on the overall dualling programme’s completion date of 2025.”