Exclusive:SNP accused of 'papering over the cracks' as A9 maintenance costs £161m over five years
Upkeep for Scotland’s longest road cost at least £28m every year between 2020 and 2025.
The Scottish Government has been accused of “papering over the cracks” after it spent £161 million on maintenance of the A9 over five years.
Upkeep for Scotland’s longest road - which runs from the central belt to the north of the country - cost more than £28m every year between 2020 and 2025.
The Scottish Government was supposed to have finished dualling the road in 2025. But it recently announced that it will complete the dualling of the Perth to Inverness section of the road by 2035 - with the cost increasing to nearly £4 billion.
The Scottish Tories said it was “a national scandal” that the maintenance bill was so high and said it was because the SNP had failed to dual the road.
A Freedom of Information Request revealed that Transport Scotland - the Scottish Government agency - forked out £30.9m on maintaining the road in 2020/21.
In 2021/22 it spent £28.2m, and £28.1m the following year.
This rose to £31m in 2023/24, but jumped further to £43.3m in 2024/25.
Scottish Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands Tim Eagle said: “This is a national scandal. More than £160m of public money has been spent and the A9 still hasn’t been fully dualled.
“SNP ministers can’t keep papering over the cracks. Their inaction is costing lives on this dangerous yet critical road.
“Unlike the nationalists, the Scottish Conservatives would pass emergency legislation to fast-track the dualling of the A9 by speeding up environmental impact assessments, as well as bringing in private finance to help with the funding.”
SNP Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop told MSPs last week that the scheme to dual the road between Perth and Inverness cost had risen from £3.7bn to £3.97bn and a novel private funding method had been rejected as poor value for money.
However, she insisted the target to complete the work by 2035 - ten years late - remained despite the cost now being entirely borne by the public purse.
Dozens of people have lost their lives on the 113-mile stretch between Inverness and Perth in the last 10 years.
A Transport Scotland spokesperson said: “These figures include all maintenance spend for the full length of the A9, from Dunblane to Scrabster, for the past five years. This includes surfacing, drainage, barriers, signage, lining and winter spending, to keep the existing A9 safe and operational under our current maintenance contracts.
“Despite facing significant pressures on our capital budget, we continue to progress work on infrastructure projects across the country, including the A9 Dualling Perth to Inverness. The Transport Secretary gave an update to parliament on the A9 Dualling Programme last week.
“The overall timetable for completion of the A9 Dualling Programme has been developed to balance a number of factors, one of which is disruption to road users, and any attempt to accelerate construction would inevitably lead to increased disruption for road users, as well as placing greater pressure on the construction industry.
“All Environmental Impact Assessments have now been published for the projects making up the A9 Dualling Programme, with only one of these, Pass of Birnam to Tay Crossing, still subject to consideration as part of the statutory processes for that project. It is therefore not clear that there would be any timetable benefit in seeking to pass new legislation that would curtail the rights of individuals to participate in these statutory processes.”
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