The SNP will spend over £800 million on the A9 dualling project before the third section is even finished, the Scottish Conservatives can reveal today.
To date, the SNP has spent over £520 million on the A9 dualling, with a further £300 million planned over the next two years.
Despite this, only two of the 11 sections have been completed, and the third section, Tomatin to Moy, which was planned for completion in 2027, is now not expected until at least spring 2028.
The remaining eight sections haven’t even begun construction.
The SNP first committed to fully dualling the A9 in 2011, with a completion date set for 2025.
However, ministers “shamefully” abandoned that target in December 2023, admitting the dualling would be delayed by a decade.
Shadow transport secretary Sue Webber says 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.
Webber added that the Scottish Conservatives would take the action needed to dual this road by cutting bureaucracy and passing emergency legislation to “get the job done”.
Scottish Conservative Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Sue Webber MSP, said: “The SNP’s ongoing failure to dual the A9 is Scotland's national shame.
“They’ve managed to squander £800 million of taxpayers’ money and still not even a third of the A9 is dualled.
“The SNP first promised to dual this road 14 years ago but have shamefully betrayed communities who rely on this lifeline road. They shamefully abandoned their initial target, only to put the completion date back another decade.
“Successive transport ministers should apologise to Scots for wasting this eye-watering amount of money.
“As costs soar and progress stalls, more and more lives are being lost on the A9.
“Unlike the SNP, we would make dualling the A9 a top priority. We would cut the bureaucracy slowing this project down by passing emergency legislation to finally get the job done and deliver what was promised.”
Notes:
Spending on the A9 dualling will be over £800 million by April 2027. The SNP has spent £520,259,401 on A9 dualling between 2012 and 4 June 2025. A further £110,181,991 is planned for 2025–26 and £190,058,000 for 2026–27. This brings the total projected spend to £820,499,392 by April 2027. (Scottish Conservative FOI, 2 July 2025, available on request).
By April 2027 only 2 of the 11 A9 sections will be dualled. So far two of 11 sections on the A9 between Perth and Inverness have been completed: Kincraig to Dalraddy (2017) and Luncarty to Pass of Birnam (2021). 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. (BBC Scotland, 30 September 2017, Link; A9 Dualling, 2021, Link; BBC Scotland, 8 October 2024, Link).
The original deadline for the A9 dualling was abandoned, and the new one is slipping. The full dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness was first announced by the SNP in 2011, with a target completion date of 2025. This deadline was officially abandoned in December 2023, and the revised target is now 2035. However, delays on the third section suggests even that new timetable is already slipping. (BBC Scotland, 29 November 2011, Link; BBC Scotland, 20 December 2023, Link; BBC Scotland, 8 October 2024, Link).