Current Petition
A90/A937 (Safety Improvements) (PE1236)
Members will recall that we agreed at our previous meeting to consider PE1236 first today in order to allow the local member, Nigel Don, to attend and to speak to the committee on behalf of the petitioner. I hand over to him.
Thank you, convener, and good afternoon, fellow members. I thank the convener and the clerks for organising the agenda in such a way as to accommodate me. It is helpful, as I have to go and convene my own committee shortly.
Members will be aware of another document that has arrived. It contains information that has been produced by David Young of Laurencekirk villages in control, which is a local group, on the many heavy vehicles that daily cross the Laurencekirk junction, and the A90 at the south junction in particular, about which we are concerned. I am grateful to David Young for the research that has produced the numbers. Those of us who are familiar with the junction—perhaps all members feel that they are by now familiar with it by proxy, although I am conscious that local members are certainly familiar with it—might be somewhat surprised by the large number of vehicles that cross it. We knew about the buses, but I am not sure whether we knew how many heavy lorries are based in Laurencekirk.
The number of accidents seems to be lower now, so Transport Scotland might be entitled to say that the junction has got safer so we should not worry about it, but some nasty accidents are waiting to happen. I do not want to overemphasise that point, particularly in the light of recent tragedies elsewhere, but hazard analysis involves considering how often accidents will occur and how serious they will be.
It would help my constituents if the committee felt able to write to the Government to draw its attention to the statistics, of which it might not be aware, and to ask what hazard analysis has been done of the junction. I am sure that ministers are now aware that this 20-mile stretch of dual carriageway has no flyover or underpass—vehicles, including articulated vehicles, have no alternative to crossing the junction and taking their chances. The Government might not be aware of the number of heavy vehicles in the area. It would help if ministers sought clarity about how the hazards have been analysed.
I draw members’ attention to the number of submissions that we have received on the petition, which include a submission from Mr Nassar from Pakistan.
I am glad to see Nigel Don at the meeting to put the case for his constituents, who are also my constituents, as I represent North East Scotland. His suggestion is good. I wonder whether people who are not as familiar as we are with the junction know the most recent information. I confess that I did not know it—I had no idea how many heavy vehicles use the junction. I am more than happy to suggest keeping the petition open and undertaking the action that he suggests.
I thank Nigel Don for his evidence. The situation is gravely concerning. I agree with Nanette Milne and I recommend that the petition stay open in the light of the new information, which is particularly worrying.
Like Nanette Milne, I regularly use the stretch of road that we are discussing. I represent the north-east and I am familiar with the concerns in the communities of Laurencekirk and Montrose, which the vehicles that use the route go between.
The introduction of the 50mph section did not help; it made it difficult for motorists who use the junction to judge accurately the speed of oncoming traffic. It is more by good fortune than anything else that accidents have not occurred at the junction. When driving, I have witnessed drivers taking chances there.
When Transport Scotland makes decisions, it must base them on the existing details and statistics. It is unfortunate that in order to achieve significant junction improvement we are essentially waiting for a bad accident to happen. None of us wants a bad accident to happen, but the recognition seems to be dawning that that will have to happen before a significant junction improvement takes place. It should not have to be that way.
To write to the Government in the terms that the local member suggests would be the best way forward. I know that Nigel Don has met the relevant local authorities. There is the potential for a significant increase in housing in the area. Do you want to give us an update on your discussions with local authorities, which might give us further information for our consideration?
I happy to do so. I emphasise, however, that there are two sides in this, the first of which is the local authority side. I have spoken to the directors of the local authorities, who have made it quite clear that there will be more house building and more purchasing of housing in the area over a significant period. However, I do not think that any of us believes that that will happen terribly soon. Secondly, they recognise that the houses that are going to be built according to the current plan will be too far away from the south junction for there to be any real opportunity for section 75 money—if that means anything—to be appropriated for the junction.
The local authorities’ third point is that the A90 is a trunk road and it is therefore not—with the best will in the world—their responsibility to put in the junction. They have made it absolutely clear that although the A90 is dangerous there, it is not statutorily a local authority responsibility and it would not be the right way to spend local authority money. They are entirely supportive, but is very clear that the bill is for Transport Scotland to pay.
I thank you for that update. The paper on the petition mentions the new house building and that there may have been an opportunity for developers to do something under section 75.
Forgive me, deputy convener. I was struggling to remember my other point; I have remembered it. Transport Scotland said in the costing exercise—which members will remember—that the south junction needs to be upgraded: it is there in the text. Transport Scotland knows that work has to be done on the junction if an increase in traffic is to be accommodated. There is no dispute about whether the junction needs to have work done on it. The questions are these: how will we find the money for it, how fast, and how on earth will we find it before we have the major accident to which Mark McDonald just referred?
I thank the member for that update.
As a regular user of the A90, going back and forth from Aberdeen airport, it has always struck me that the junction is an issue. I certainly agree with the consensus view that the petition be kept open and a letter be written to the Government.
I thank Nigel Don for his verbal contribution today and for his written contribution to the debate. Nigel sat on the committee when we first considered the petition in the previous parliamentary session.
Clearly, the work that David Young has done highlights a number of issues in relation to the volume of traffic at the junction. I see that there is someone in the public gallery today who will be very interested in the number of school buses that use the junction. The committee knows about the problems around school bus transport.
I thank the petitioner for her submission. It is clear that she has identified the issues. She uses local press reports about businesses booming in Montrose. Given the work that is taking place in Montrose, there is going to be a greater volume not of passenger vehicles such as cars, but of heavy traffic using the junction.
It would be appropriate to write to the local authorities. I take on board Nigel Don’s point about the statutory obligation lying with Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government. However, it might be useful to write to the councils again to ask, in the light of the latest information that we have from Nigel Don and the petitioner, whether they would approach the Scottish Government to try to push the issue along. Clearly, given the new evidence, we should write to Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government again and ask them to reconsider the issues regarding the junction.
I hope that we can allay the petitioner’s fears, given that she said in the last paragraph of her most recent letter that she thinks that there is no support from local MSPs. I hope that, once she reads the Official Report of today’s meeting, she will realise that two MSPs on this committee and an MSP who attended today support the petition. We will attempt to do everything that we can to get Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government to see sense and to move on the issue before a serious incident happens at that junction. If such an incident happens, we will all regret that we did not take action sooner.
Thank you. The Public Petitions Committee wishes to continue the petition, and the concerns will be noted. I thank Nigel Don for attending.