Local Lib Dems are taking their campaign to ‘Speed Up the Bypass’ west of the Highland Capital as they seek to build pressure on the Scottish Government to commit funding to the vital project.

In the course of the next two weeks, campaign leaflets will be delivered to residents in Glenurquhart and Glenmoriston inviting them to join the fight to get the bypass built. Just over 2,000 people in Inverness have already backed the campaign by signing postcards, petitions and online.

John Farquhar Munro MSPLocal Lib Dem MSP John Farquhar Munro said:

“In the Strategic Transport Projects Review, the Scottish Government states that they consider the bypass to be of mainly local benefit.

“In the same document, though, they state that almost half of all traffic on the A82 between Inverness and Fort William is travelling to destinations beyond the ‘transport corridor’ – and that the greater part of that traffic is seeking to join the A96 or the A9 at Inverness. More than half of the traffic approaching Inverness on the A82 is bound for one trunk road or the other.

“Residents of places like Drumnadrochit, Invermoriston, Fort Augustus and Cannich know what a difference the bypass would make directly to them and to local businesses in the villages. I hope that they will help us to show this project has benefits which extend right across our region.”

Danny Alexander MP added:

“It is nonsense for the Scottish Government to try to abdicate its responsibility for great swathes of the trunk road network because it is used by local traffic as well as by so-called ‘strategic’ traffic.

“In any event, it seems that the clear majority of traffic currently coming into central Inverness on the A82 is 'strategic' in nature according to Transport Scotland's own figures.

Danny Alexander MP“Neither the evidence nor the logic supports the decision not to make any significant investment on the A82 between Fort William and Inverness in the 20 year plan unveiled in December.

“First and foremost, we need the SNP to keep its promise to fund the bypass before 2012, but we also can’t afford to let them walk away from their commitment to the trunk road network right across the Highlands . The lifeline role which many of our trunk roads play in the absence of any alternative infrastructure makes them more important and not less so.”

Aird & Loch Ness councillor Hamish Wood said:

“I know from a recent survey which I conducted in communities right around Loch Ness that there is very widespread support for the bypass already.

“I hope that residents will back the ‘Speed up the Bypass’ campaign so we can show Ministers that support extends far beyond urban Inverness itself.”

Notes:

• The Scottish Government’s Strategic Transport Projects Review, published in December 2008, rejected the Inverness Southern Bypass describing it as a “high cost, road based intervention which largely provides local benefits for local traffic”.
• The Review’s own assessment of the use of the A82 corridor between Fort William and Inverness is at http://www.transportscotland.gov.uk/reports/publications-and-guidance/road/j9853a-13.htm. It shows that 42% of all traffic using that stretch of the A82 is travelling to locations outside the transport corridor (compared with 44% ‘wholly internal’ trips and 17% destined for Inverness itself). More than a quarter (27%) of traffic approaching Inverness from the West flows on to the A96, almost a fifth (17%) travels south on the A9 towards Perth and the same amount travels north via the A9 either towards Wick & Thurso or via the A835 towards Ullapool. In total, this suggests that more than half of traffic approaching Inverness on the A82 is ‘strategic’ in nature (61%).
• “Fergus Ewing, SNP MSP for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, promised the TLR would go ahead far sooner [than 2012] if the nationalists won a majority at May's Scottish parliamentary elections. "HiTrans' plan assumes the outcome of the next election. Inverness would not be left out under the SNP,” he said.
• "HiTrans shouldn't assume that 2012 is the earliest possible date. By that time there will probably be thousands more users of an already clogged up traffic system. Labour and Lib Dem projects are in the central belt - we will invest in the Highlands.” (Inverness Courier, 3rd November 2006)
• “Fergus Ewing, the Nationalist transport spokesman, said the £609m cost [of the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link] should be redirected to a dual carriageway upgrade of the A9 between Inverness and Perth and the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen, the A82 which links with Inverness through Lochaber, and building a rail bridge over the Dornoch Firth.” (The Herald, 7th November 2006)
• “We will proceed with the Network Rail RUS plan to cut journey times from Inverness to the Central Belt. We wish to proceed as quickly as possible, and would scrap other projects to give this one more priority.” (Fergus Ewing, quoted in the Badenoch & Strathspey Herald, 7th March 2007)
• Through a spokesman, Stewart Stevenson told the Inverness Courier in June 2007:
  “There is no direct link between spending on the trams and on roads projects. I have never said there was.
• “The budget for roads projects in the north stands alone.”