Moray Chamber of Commerce has urged the Scottish Government to commit to A96 dualling promise
A leading business organisation has called on the Scottish Government to “commit to its promise” and dual the A96.
Moray Chamber of Commerce CEO Sarah Medcraf said the latest in consultation has left many feeling that the SNP “aren’t interested” in dualling the road between Inverness and Aberdeen.
In 2011, the SNP promised to fully dual the A96 by 2030, but recently admitted that deadline will no longer be met.
Mrs Medcraf - who will become a director at Scottish Chambers on January 1 - said that dualling the road is crucial for employees, visitors and businesses.
“If we are going to compete with other regions and countries then people and products need to get about,” she said. “They can’t do that when the infrastructure isn’t there.
“We are asking them (the SNP) to deliver on what they have promised. They put it in their manifesto and got votes on the fact they were going to dual the A96 and they haven’t done it.
“They have failed us and need to go back to the drawing board.
“The message to (transport secretary) Fiona Hyslop is this - commit to your promise, deliver for the people of Moray and connect us to the rest of Scotland.”
Mrs Medcraf said the number of consultations that have been run on bypasses and dualling has left many believing that the Government isn’t taking the issue seriously.
She added: “The government came out with the ‘we are still committed to dualling it’ line, but the amount of consultations we have had since they agreed to dual it is making us believe that they aren’t interested.
“It’s like they are trying to find a reason not to dual the A96.
“I appreciate the commitment to the bypasses for Elgin and Keith, but if we want to be competitive as a region we have to be connected.
“We are already so far behind the rest of Scotland when it comes to transport and infrastructure.”
But won’t dualling the A96 - and bypassing towns like Keith - reduce passing trade, taking money out of the pockets of business owners?
To answer that question, Sarah looked at the Fochabers bypass - which was opened in 2012.
“On the whole there is a general consensus that dualling is a good thing,” she explained. “There are some businesses that are quite indifferent to it, not everybody is saying ‘please dual it’.
“If you go back to 2012, the Fochabers bypass opened. Fochabers is now buzzing, is a great place to live and the town centre there is doing very well.
“We have an opportunity to be building town centres to be sustainable - to be a destination that people want to stop in, as opposed to ‘I best stop there because I’m passing through’.
“At the minute, do people stop in Keith when passing through? Maybe. Maybe they stop in Tesco or at the garage for fuel.
“But I think there is more benefit in trying to make it a destination - and people in Keith will benefit from not having big trucks going through their town.”
We may be waiting a while to find out more on the A96 dualling issue - but Sarah ensured Moray’s businesses that she will be “taking Moray’s voice to the central belt” in her role at Scottish Chambers.
