£800m to be spent on dualling less than a third of A9

More than £800 million will be spent on the A9 dualling project before a third of it is completed, critics have claimed.

To date, the SNP has spent over £520m on the A9 dualling project, with a further £300m planned by April 2027, according to figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests.

The SNP first committed to fully dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness in 2011, with a completion date set for 2025.

Ministers scrapped that target in December 2023, admitting the dualling would be delayed by a decade.

So far, only two of the 11 sections on the A9 between Perth and Inverness have been completed: Kincraig to Dalraddy and Luncarty to Pass of Birnam.

The Tomatin to Moy section has only recently entered construction and was planned for 2027, but is now not expected until spring 2028.

The other eight sections remain in planning, design, or procurement stages.

One year after awarding the contract for the Tomatin to Moy stretch, Scotland’s transport secretary visited the site on Monday to meet with workers.

Fiona Hyslop said work is “progressing well” and defended the updated timescales rollout.

She said the work is on target and added that drivers will already see improvements as changes are made to the A9.

“[The staged dualling approach] is a practical way of making sure we can get delivery of 50% of A9 dualled for 2030, 85% by 2033, and completion of 100% by 2035,” Hyslop said.

“We’ve looked into every option, this is the best option. From now on, you’re going to start seeing work at the north of the A9 as well as the south of the A9.”

Shadow transport secretary Sue Webber argued that the SNP’s ongoing failure to dual the lifeline road is a “national shame” and urged SNP ministers to apologise to Scots for wasting this “eye-watering” amount of money while no progress has been made.

“They’ve managed to squander £800 million of taxpayers’ money and still not even a third of the A9 is dualled,” she said.

“As costs soar and progress stalls, more and more lives are being lost on the A9.