Challenge to a dual

Having driven up and down the A9 this week, a journey undertaken several times in the last two years, it struck me that the section north of Perth with its average speed cameras and sections of completed upgrading is working well.

A quick check on the A9 dualling website told me that the budget for the dualling is £3 billion, with completion

planned for 2025. This is a vast sum to spend on a road that is currently used by a relatively small percentage of Scotland’s total traffic and in the current budgetary climate has become more of a “nice to have” than an absolute necessity.

For the immediate future no more new sections of upgrading should be started. Continue with all the ground investigation works to obtain the necessary information to

allow the design works to be done and when completed then issue for tender, thus giving an accurate budget figure to work around.

As the roads that the majority of traffic use are in dire need of repair, up to £1bn of the money earmarked for the A9 dualling should be used to carry out these repairs.

Upon receipt of the returned tenders means of raising the finance to complete the dualling should be investigated and implemented. This way public money would be used to the benefit of many and not relatively few road users.

Given that the timescale to complete is seven years away I don’t think people could justifiably complain if this is extended by a couple of years if they saw that the rest of the road network was being attended to.

GORDON MCLEOD

Lasswade Road, Dalkeith