A former SNP MSP has accused the Scottish government of failing to disclose that it had no money to build a bypass in the Highlands. Fergus Ewing, who broke away from the party after fall-outs over issues including roads, said the A96 Nairn bypass had been promised since 2011.
He told BBC Scotland News that ministers had been “concealing advice” which said there was unlikely to be any money to take forward the procurement and construction phases this decade.
Transport Scotland said Ewing’s claims were “factually wrong,” adding that work to dual the bypass was already under way.
On Friday, First Minister John Swinney said his government was “absolutely committed” to a bypass and the dualling of the A96 at Nairn.
In November 2024 the Scottish government abandoned its commitment to make the A96 from Inverness to Aberdeen fully dual carriageway by 2030. The SNP pledged in 2011 to upgrade 86 miles (138km) of the route by then.
Ewing said a recent freedom of information (FOI) request revealed ministers were told in 2023 that there was no cash to pay for the Nairn bypass for at least eight years, but the Inverness and Nairn MSP said ministers then “covered it up”.
Ewing added:
“That’s a shocking revelation and it shows that they are saying one thing to the public when they know that another thing is in fact the case.”
On 24 March 2023 Ewing claimed that Màiri McAllan – the net zero and just transition secretary at the time – was advised by Transport Scotland that for the Nairn bypass, “no funding has been identified to take forward the procurement and construction phases of the scheme”.
Ewing said McAllan, Fiona Hyslop and First Minister John Swinney “chose to conceal this advice from the public despite being urged to accept a duty of candour”.
He added: “For nearly three years they have hidden from the public that they knew that the Nairn bypass would, in the absence of funds, have little chance of being built before 2031, if at all.”
Ewing said he had made multiple FOI requests before he was given details of the Transport Scotland funding update on 17 December.
(Picture: Mapillary)
