Murdo has taken umbrage at the comments by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon concerning explaining delays to dual the notorious A9 Perth to Inverness road.
He says people “are tired of excuses and warm words,” and accused Ms Sturgeon of “once again taking her eye off the ball” when it came to progressing with the much-needed project.
Murdo was commenting following the appearance of Ms Sturgeon at Scottish Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee earlier this week, where she gave evidence to MSPs and tried to explain the reasons why the SNP Government target of completely dualling the road by 2025 was never met.
The road has a horrendous record of fatalities and on Tuesday this week, a pedestrian died following a collision between two HGVs near to the pedestrian footbridge on-slip for the A85 on the A9 Perth bypass.
Murdo said: “You have to take the comments from the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during her appearance at the committee with a pinch of salt. It was obvious to many road safety groups, local residents and local politicians, that the ambitious original target of having the A9 Perth to Inverness road dualled by 2025 was not going to happen. During her appearance at Holyrood this week, Nicola Sturgeon told the committee her SNP Government ‘maybe took too long to accept meeting the target wasn’t possible,’ but one of the main reasons it was not met was because it was not one of their main priorities, as it should have been.
“Ms Sturgeon told Holyrood that the dualling project has been a Government priority but she is trying to pull the wool over our eyes with comments like this. I have lost count of the number of times I raised the painfully slow progress with the dualling scheme at the Scottish Parliament, citing the increasing number of fatalities as the months and years went by. Just like Scotland’s embarrassing drug death crises, Nicola Sturgeon again took her eye off the ball concerning the dualling of the A9.”
Murdo continued: “Road safety campaigners and local residents are tired of excuses and warm words from the SNP Government regarding the A9 dualling – they are desperate to see some progress. Communities in Perthshire and the Highlands have waited far too long to see improvements to the road. Too many lives have needlessly been lost and more will die as a result of the delays in progressing with the dualling.
“Instead of being solely focused on independence during this General Election, the SNP should have made dualling the A9 one of their main priorities.”
