Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Official Report 586KB pdf

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Petition

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A90/A937 (Safety Improvements) (PE1236)

Under agenda item 4 we will take evidence on PE1236, on the Laurencekirk junction, as agreed at our committee meeting on 27 February. The session will be split into three evidence panels: community representatives; local authorities and regional transport partners; and Transport Scotland. We will hear first from community representatives. I welcome Michael Robson.

Members will be aware that we have received a lot of written evidence on this petition. With that in mind, Mr Robson, please make some brief opening remarks.

Thank you very much.

We have read your document, from Laurencekirk villages in control, so please keep your remarks as brief as possible.

I will do. I noted in the document that I am a retired vet and I regard this as an acute case of preventive medicine. We think that a compelling case has already been made for the upgrade of this junction. The traffic statistics support that. It is the busiest crossing on the A90 between Perth and Aberdeen that does not have a grade-separated junction, although it fulfils the criteria for such a junction to be built. In addition, the problem is having a huge effect on the local community—from an agricultural and oil and gas point of view, and from the point of view of the residents of the area.

The group that I represent is a local economic development body in Laurencekirk. We try to support local commerce and industry, but the issues with the road are providing a great disincentive to that. The importance of the link to Montrose cannot be overestimated. It is a traditional link for Laurencekirk, as Montrose is the next big town. A lot of agricultural traffic goes to and from the harbour in Montrose. Of course, the A90 has become a popular commuter route, mainly to Aberdeen.

Transport Scotland has done a lot of work on preparing the details for improving the road. However, Transport Scotland does not remember the people or look at the human impact of the road in its current state. It is a physical barrier between two halves of a community. Basically, the road goes right up through the Howe of the Mearns and splits one side from the other, which has a direct effect on the people who host the main road. It also has a psychological effect, in that the whole community is preoccupied with the problem of crossing the road. No matter where people go, they have to cross it.

I gather that the main issue for the Scottish Government is not so much the case for upgrading, but who will pay for it. Mention has been made of planning gain funding from developers at Laurencekirk, which was discussed fairly extensively at the inquiry for the local development plan. At that time, there were two prospective developments. One of them, which is on a site in the north of Laurencekirk, is edging forwards. The other potential site was in the south, but the development was not accepted and is not in the current local plan. So we have no developer in sight to fund anything at the south junction. It was agreed with the developer that the north site was not large enough to fund two graded junctions.

We think that the plans that Transport Scotland has proposed to improve the road are ideal and would address many of the local issues with crossing the road. We appreciate the time and effort that has gone into the work by Transport Scotland and by members who are here. However, we expect action. Robust decisions should be made and something should progress rapidly, because of the prospect of much increased traffic on the A90. Under the local structure plan, another 72,000 houses are being built along the length of the A90 northwards, and I believe that the figure is to be reviewed shortly because of the anticipated demographics of the oil industry, which mean that 50 per cent of the staff are expected to be replaced in the next 10 years.

We therefore expect many more commuters travelling north from south of Aberdeen. The issue with the crossing is not largely a result of the growth in local traffic; it is a result of the fact that the traffic on the A90 is 300 per cent of what it was when the road started. We see the responsibility for implementing the crossing as being right at the feet of Transport Scotland, and we think that you should decide to progress on that basis.

I should point out that this committee does not allocate funding, so we cannot make a decision to fund the improvements, although we can make recommendations on the process.

I watched a good film on YouTube that starred yourself, Mr Robson, and others, which Nigel Don provided to us during the weekend. The situation with vehicles pulling out at the junction looks pretty horrific. Will you say a little more about your dealings with Transport Scotland on the issues that you raised in the petition? What relationship has there been between Transport Scotland and members of the community?

When we have met representatives from Transport Scotland, we have been delighted with the way in which they described the plans that they have to implement and their general reasoning. A possible issue that we have with them is that of risk assessment. They seem to deal primarily with historical information about deaths and serious injuries, but the situation is changing. Traffic volume continues to go up and Transport Scotland does not seem to put a lot of emphasis on near misses and the pointers to the seriousness of the risk element.

I have asked Transport Scotland to give us details about how it carries out risk assessment. Colleagues in my organisation who work in the oil industry get the impression that the procedure is not nearly as robust as it should be for a situation in which the risks are so high. I would like the committee to assess the level of risk assessment to see whether it really is adequate for purpose in this day and age. I am talking particularly about prevention, because it seems to us that we are just counting deaths and putting a value on them of £2 million a death. That does not seem to be very constructive, unless we think that we can prevent those deaths and save £6 million or £8 million, for example.

However, access to information from Transport Scotland has generally been very good and the talks that we have had with its representatives and our understanding of its plans have been excellent.

Is it one of your criticisms that Transport Scotland’s view of the issue is historical and that it bases its assessments on the road’s past, rather than on future developments?

That is right. For example, its references to the size of the community were historical, and the fact is that accident figures are historical. However, we have a lot of information about how things are developing in the north east. We have the main road to Europe’s oil capital—it is clogging up much closer to Aberdeen at the moment—on which the traffic flow is increasing, as is the number of junctions that are becoming more difficult to use to join the road.

For example, the fact that there are 20,000 vehicles a day at Laurencekirk means that a vehicle passes every three seconds. The rush hour is not an hour; it lasts for about six hours every day because people working in the oil industry start early and finish late. The more traffic there is, the shorter the intervals will be between vehicles. If we build 72,000 houses on that stretch of the A90, for instance, it will mean 150,000 more cars feeding on to the A90. It will not all be at our end, thank goodness, but it will make a difference to what is already a critical situation around a very busy junction. It should be remembered that it is a crossroads, not just a T-junction. Vehicles have to join the flow or cross the road from a standing start and that is a big issue for lorries and tractors—they run out of time.

Considering only the historical data is missing the point. We want to prevent problems from occurring and try to give the local people their community back. The situation is having a huge impact on the way we can behave. It is limiting what the community does by preventing people from travelling and inhibiting what they would normally do because they all have to go on to the A90. Usually, they have to cross it. For instance, Laurencekirk has no fuel station so someone who wants to refuel their car has to go on to the dual carriageway and drive seven miles north or south.

The junction has a dramatic effect on the community and it is visibly worsening. I have lived there all my life and it has amazed me how the volume of traffic has gone up without an apparent increase in activity in Aberdeen, although Aberdeen is growing and flourishing. Even if you were to visit, it would be difficult for you to appreciate the trend and the fact that the road is filling up rapidly. It is not just happening for an hour in the morning and at night; it is pretty much from 6 or 6.30 in the morning to about 7 at night. It does not stop at weekends because Aberdeen empties on Friday, so there is a rush hour from 3 o’clock until late evening, then people start to come back on Sunday from lunchtime and we can hardly get across the road.

It is a critical situation. It is not a minor problem.

The community thought that it was great in 1984 when the Government gave the okay for a bypass. It got rid of 7,000 cars a day from our high street and gave us our lives back. Now we are getting cut off and it is not just us but the whole of the community—about 9,000 people live in the area.

11:30

Irrespective of whether you agree with the decision, did Transport Scotland explain well enough how it reached its decision? Is the way in which it communicates with the public good enough? Is the dialogue good enough?

The funding issue does not make sense. It keeps saying that any improvement must be paid for by developers but, when there is no developer, you might as well say that it must be paid for by Mr Putin or Sir Moir Lockhead or someone. The money is not there, so unless you want me to go round the community with a begging cap, the money has to come from Transport Scotland’s budgets. It is its road and its responsibility. We are hosting the thing but we are not causing the problem.

I think that people would disagree that Aberdeen empties on a Friday; it is clogged up every day of the week.

In your introduction you said that Laurencekirk fulfils the criteria for a new grade-separated junction. Will you summarise the points that meet the criteria? Why does Transport Scotland disagree?

I do not think that Transport Scotland does disagree. If you were building a new road, the criterion for a grade-separated junction is to have 3,000 vehicles a day crossing it. The numbers at the south junction are approaching 6,000 a day. By what factor do we have to exceed the criterion before it is satisfied? I appreciate that it is not a new build, but if those are the guidelines, we are exceeding them twofold.

I use that junction regularly and every time I use it I see something that horrifies me.

On Monday morning past, when Nigel Don and his team were making the film, completely coincidentally my colleague Nanette Milne and I were driving south—we were heading for a meeting in Glasgow. Just before eight o’clock, we were in the lane of traffic that slowed down to the 50 mile-an-hour limit. We were overtaken by a heavy lorry that did not slow down at all and went through the junction at full speed—perhaps in excess of that—in the fast lane, which at the time was covered in snow. When incidents such as that happen, it can be only a matter of time before something serious happens as a result. My concerns are very much in line with those that Mr Robson expressed.

How easy is it to contact the right people in Transport Scotland to get your message across?

It is easier to contact the right people in Transport Scotland than it is to contact the right people in the Government. Access to the Government is a problem. It started off very well a number of years ago—I found it open and easy to access. Now, if we try to contact ministers, we get no response. The only way in which we can get a response from a ministerial department is to write to our MSP or MP. They will write to a minister and we will get a reply second hand. That is very effective, but it is not the way that it should be.

We have existing links with Transport Scotland because when we write to the minister, he gets Transport Scotland to reply. We do not get a reply from the minister. I regard that as bad manners, if nothing else; it is certainly poor communication. We have plenty of communication with Transport Scotland, thanks very much, not because we wrote to it in the first place, but because we wrote to the minister.

I do not know whether that is normal practice. I took it up with Alison McInnes, who I believe is business manager for the Lib Dems and she advised me that it is the duty of MSPs to reply to mail, although I do not think that she was quite so convinced that it was the duty of ministers or their staff to reply to mail. Transport Scotland is not the problem—we have been diverted to it the whole time.

How effectively have Transport Scotland, Nestrans—the north east of Scotland transport partnership—and the local authorities worked together in dealing with the proposal for a junction improvement? How might they improve their co-operation?

It is a fact that we have an increasing number of interested parties, and there has not really been an obvious forum for everyone to take part in. We are aware of Nestrans and Transport Scotland reports and of the opinions of councillors and the local council, but we do not have an opportunity as a body of interested parties to work together on the matter.

How could those bodies improve matters? Do they simply need to talk more to each other?

Yes. It is not difficult. For example, a slip road was recently put in at the north junction. A T-junction with a standing start was changed so that there is a slip road going north, and that has made a phenomenal difference. Breedon Aggregates, which got the contract to do that work, held meetings with the community, the council and you. It explained what it was doing and asked whether there were any other things that it should consider. One item was mentioned and was immediately adopted, which made a significant difference. The model that that contractor followed was very effective, but we do not have anything like that to deal with the situation.

Is there proper and effective understanding at various levels of how increasing traffic and the prospects for development will influence demand and the availability of funding? Earlier, you said that the potential development to the south of Laurencekirk is now not on the local plan and, consequently, it is unlikely that money will come from that to develop a junction. Do Transport Scotland and the other organisations that are involved have an adequate understanding of the relationship between development plans and that potential?

I would be surprised if they do not, but they did not convey that to the minister. The replies that I received from the minister, which Transport Scotland drafted, persisted in stating that the funding had to be developer led, as if a developer was there. However, there is no prospect of a developer at the moment.

Did they fail to understand that what we are talking about is the demand that is placed on the road network by the broader community and the effects of that, rather than the demands made by any local development?

Yes. It almost seems as though there was misinformation, because they relied on the report on the local development plan. They were not aware that things had moved on since then, so that report is out of date. It was also inaccurate on a couple of issues. It said that the north junction was the busier one and had more accidents, but that was not true. I do not know whether members were aware of that. Compared with the north junction, the south junction has almost twice the traffic crossing.

The north junction is not a crossing, of course.

It is not a crossroads; it is just a T-junction.

Thank you.

Does anyone else have any questions for the community representative?

Thank you for letting me speak, convener.

Can Mr Robson give us a little more understanding of the implications of the junction in the absence of a flyover in the context of the 20 miles between Brechin and Stonehaven, and of the way that people around that area drive—and sometimes do not drive—because of what they know about that road and other junctions? I am talking about people in the wider community rather than only people who live in Laurencekirk.

People cope with the problem in a number of ways. One is to try to find a junction that is less crowded. There are several of those around. The problem is that they are not any safer, because they tend to have smaller central reservations and shorter horizons. However, people have no competition when they get to those junctions; they have them to themselves. Another way is to get to a grade-separated junction, which means driving to Brechin or Stonehaven, which are about 10 and 14 miles away, respectively.

There are complicating issues, such as darkness—the junction is not lit, and it is relatively difficult to judge traffic speed when vehicles are coming towards you out of the darkness, so people just do not travel at night. The same thing applies in bad weather conditions—visibility is critical because of the speed of the traffic.

There is a speed limit of 50mph at the junction that we are talking about upgrading but, at the other junctions, you are going from a standing start into traffic doing 70mph or 80mph. It is more dangerous for people to divert to the faster junctions. Further, to do that, they must drive along the back roads and the side roads, and it is well known that more accidents occur on those kinds of roads than on the main roads. If you count only accidents on the main road, you are dismissing those that will happen elsewhere, if you follow me. We will be creating more hazards on the side roads if we ask people to avoid that crossing.

A lot of people will not use the junction. They have stopped shopping in Laurencekirk or have stopped visiting people on the other side of the crossing. As I said, it creates a mental phenomenon within the people in the locality. Transport Scotland is good at thinking about physical health, but it does not think about the mental health of the people whose lives are being cut in two by this fine road. There is a huge impact.

On a positive note, if the junction is made into a grade-separated junction, and is therefore made safe to use, it will pull in all the people who were previously travelling along the back roads to use the minor junctions. A recent fatality occurred at a junction about three miles north of Laurencekirk, which is, in effect, a crossroads. Such junctions are more dangerous than T-junctions, at which, in many cases, people tend to just come into the flow of traffic.

The south junction is important because the traffic that crosses it is selected, as it were. The Montrose traffic in the morning is all going to Aberdeen, so it is all turning right. As the junction is to the south of Laurencekirk, all the traffic from Laurencekirk is going south and turning right. Everything that crosses that junction, unless it is going straight between Montrose and Laurencekirk, is doing a right turn. Right turns are notorious for being the ones that involve accidents. The dangers there are obvious to everyone.

Anyone who tackles the junction gets a major adrenalin rush. The first thing that visitors comment on when they arrive is the junction. The signs might warn people, but they also scare the living daylights out of them. They are not the best way to attract people to come to Laurencekirk.

How long does it take, on average, for a car, bus or tractor to cross over and get on to the main road? Do school buses and tourist coaches use the junction?

Twenty-two bus loads of children cross the junction each day. That is a huge concern. Counting vehicles is one thing, but obviously there are more people on a school bus than there are in a car.

Based on the existing population, pupil numbers in Laurencekirk are anticipated to increase by 30 per cent in the next 10 years, so the risks will get worse. The only way to avoid the risks is to improve the junctions. However, none of the other junctions qualifies for improvement to the same extent as the south junction because it has the priority between Stonehaven and Brechin. Basically, there are long journeys of 12 or 13 miles each way of open road with no protection and minimal central reservations.

11:45

What about the average time taken to access the main road?

You cannot rely on the fact that the vehicles are going at 50 mph—you must remember that 15 per cent of them are exceeding the speed limit. The required safe period to get across to the central reservation—which is half the road—and avoid causing a hazard to the oncoming traffic is about 8 or 9 seconds. However, when a vehicle is crossing the junction, there is a steady flow of vehicles passing, with one passing every six seconds, which is one every three seconds for the combined road. At the busier periods it is obviously more challenging.

Excuse my ignorance, but is the Laurencekirk area busier during the summertime because of holiday traffic and visitors and so on? If you had a junction via which transport could safely gain access to your village, would that improve the village’s economy?

It would. As I said, we lost our petrol filling station and there is a demand from the local population to reinstate one. Because the population is barely big enough to justify a fuel station, the only economic possibility of that happening is to have one with access to a grade-separated junction. In addition, there is a total lack of accommodation in our area; the problem of getting on and off the road does not encourage people to stay. One benefit of having a grade-separated junction is that it would give us the possibility of reinstating a fuel station and having some accommodation.

Tourism in our area is minimal. It consists largely of people who have local connections coming home. Others parties come, too. The through traffic would increase, but not so much the local traffic. It would be a route over the hills to Deeside. The main difference in the summertime would be the traffic flow on the main road north to Aberdeen and beyond.

Thank you very much for your evidence, Mr Robson.

In our second panel on the petition, we have Ewan Wallace, head of transportation, Aberdeenshire Council; George Chree, head of planning and transport, Angus Council; and Derick Murray, director, Nestrans.

Welcome to the meeting. I invite witnesses to make brief opening remarks.

In relation to the junction provision issues at Laurencekirk, the council’s view is that we never consider road safety in isolation. When we look at road safety, we also look at the purpose and capacity of the road, how it connects communities and the wider network.

We try to develop most of our road safety interventions according to the principles of the community planning process and community safety. We have always been keen on doing that at Laurencekirk in our on-going discussions and communications with colleagues in Transport Scotland. It is certainly our view that the junction at the south end of the town has a historical capacity issue. I agree with most of the comments that the community representatives have made about the number of vehicles crossing the A90 at that location and the fact that it is a historical problem. Our view is that the junction is not fit for purpose.

As a road safety intervention, putting in place the 50mph zone and safety cameras has had the desired effect of reducing the number of accidents. There is certainly an issue with the length of queues on the side roads that have resulted from that. Local members have had anecdotal reports of waits of up to 30 minutes during some periods. The traffic flow has increased considerably and is three times what it was in 1984. The overall accident statistics for that short stretch of road show an increased number of collisions at the north end as well.

The key point that I want to get across is that we cannot consider the Laurencekirk junction purely as a road safety issue, because it is very much more than that. Mr Robson made that point eloquently from a community perspective. I certainly hope that all the agencies involved could consider on a collaborative basis all the existing information and identify proper solutions along the whole of this part of the A90 network.

There is an awful lot of information about this issue—there has been report after report. I will simplify that a bit, if I can. The first point is that it is both a safety and a capacity issue. The A90 was designed and built some time ago and it has experienced very high traffic growth over its lifetime and now has three times its anticipated traffic flow.

When it was designed back in the 1980s, this type of junction may well have been fit for purpose and may well have been the right kind of junction. However, it is now a different junction because the amount of traffic that uses it has hugely increased. The current traffic flow there warrants a grade-separated junction. As far as we are concerned, we should look at this as both a safety issue and a capacity issue.

To put the junction into context, part of the justification for the Aberdeen western peripheral route fastlink section is to reduce the amount of traffic on the A90 between Stonehaven and Aberdeen because there are 40 crossings across the central reserve on that section of the road. The Laurencekirk junction is a bit further down the road, but the same justification applies to it as well. The current assessment of the A9 between Perth and Inverness is that a dual carriageway with grade-separated junctions should be built there, but there is less traffic on the A9 than there is on the A90.

Another point to consider is that, although we can currently justify having a grade-separated junction at Laurencekirk, the future growth of the towns and villages along the A90—for example, Forfar, Stonehaven, Brechin, Portlethen and Newtonhill—is projected to be between 10 and 19 per cent, whereas the projection for Laurencekirk is 95 per cent, which is a significant step change.

There are two main junctions at Laurencekirk: the north junction and the south junction. The Aberdeenshire development plan has significant housing to the north. The reporter supported that as the right place, because it suits the services, the schools and the railway station.

Therefore, most of the traffic generated in Laurencekirk in the future will be at the north and it is possible to see justification for some developer contribution to any improvements to the junction to the north, but it is not possible to imagine much developer contribution coming to the junction at the south. Bear in mind that we think that we already have a justification for putting in a grade separation at the south simply because of the natural increase in traffic that has happened over the years.

To summarise, we believe that Transport Scotland needs to upgrade its junction to meet the current demand at it.

First, I apologise on behalf of Mr Green, the head of roads at Angus Council. He took ill yesterday afternoon and is not here today.

Angus Council is an adjoining authority to Aberdeenshire Council and there is complementarity between the north of Angus and south Aberdeenshire as people commute to Aberdeen. Over the past couple of years, elected members of Angus Council have been increasingly concerned about the condition of junctions on the A90 not only at Laurencekirk but at, for example, the Edzell base. As a planning authority, Angus Council is consulted by Aberdeenshire Council on major developments in the south of Aberdeenshire and responds when consulted. We have an interest in developments in and around south Aberdeenshire and the A90.

Tayside and central Scotland transport partnership, which is the regional transport authority that covers Angus, Perth, Dundee and Stirling, is concerned in general about the connectivity between Dundee and Aberdeen on the A90. In essence, tactran’s strategy is that improvements on the A90 will help to improve the economy of Dundee, Angus, Perth and Stirling.

Therefore, although it is not the authority that is responsible for the A90 junction, Angus Council has an interest in improvements on the A90.

We heard this morning that the road is not fit for purpose, and I understand that a grade-separated junction is identified as a priority in the local and regional transport strategies. How did your organisations engage with Transport Scotland before those policies were put in place?

We regularly engage with Transport Scotland on all aspects of issues that affect the trunk road. We do that formally through local development planning processes and through the consultative processes for the development of our local and regional transport strategies. We have a good relationship with the teams in Transport Scotland and we do not spring surprises on each other.

Our desire for an upgrade at Laurencekirk goes back a number of years. It is six, eight or perhaps even 10 years since the issue was first raised. It is not new and there are reams of paperwork on how the issue has progressed. However, on stumbling blocks, as Mr Robson said, we have got to a point at which there is a difference of view about how to provide a solution at the location.

We developed our local development plan proactively. We invited bids from developers and the one that has made it through the due process is at the north end. That developer understands that there would be a need to contribute to an upgrade to the junction there.

As Mr Robson said, there is existing planning permission at the south end as well and a developer who has land in their control that would be useful in developing a junction there. That permission has a condition on it that the developer cannot build there until there is a grade-separated junction. It is perhaps a catch-22 situation and, because the permission is likely to run out in the near future, the developer is currently pursuing a negotiated position to change that condition to one whereby it is not possible for houses to be occupied until such time as the junction is provided.

There is lots of detail available on what we have been doing. Over the past six years, probably barely a month has gone by in which I have not been in contact with Transport Scotland on this issues or others relating to the corridor.

12:00

Over the years, we have had quite a good relationship with what is now Transport Scotland, with which several projects have been taken forward collaboratively. In the north-east, individual councils and Nestrans—like the previous Grampian Regional Council—have taken projects to a certain stage that have then been taken forward by Transport Scotland because of their effect on trunk roads or the railways. Projects such as the Aberdeen western peripheral route, Laurencekirk station, Kintore station, the Haudagain junction and, further back in history, Bucksburn diversion were all taken forward locally first and then in conjunction with Transport Scotland. We see the Laurencekirk junction as another one of those, in that we have seen the problem and then discussed it with Transport Scotland.

As with all transport projects, the issue is that things always take too long to happen. Transport Scotland needs to prioritise projects, but it seems to have prioritised them in a different way from what we would like—there is nothing unusual in that. However, we have a reasonably good relationship with Transport Scotland for taking forward such projects. The issue is not lack of co-operation from Transport Scotland but the fact that we need Transport Scotland to give the Laurencekirk junction project a different priority.

My experience is similar to that of Mr Wallace. We have regular liaison meetings with Transport Scotland and we consult Transport Scotland on our emerging development plans. When we receive major applications, Transport Scotland will consider those and make recommendations to us on traffic impact assessments. The liaison is fairly strong.

Mr Murray, you listed a number of projects a minute ago. Is six years the norm for the development of those projects, given that you have been campaigning for the Laurencekirk grade-separated junction for that length of time?

I suspect that I would need to go back into history and have a look, but from memory six years is not a particularly long time. Transport projects take a long time because of the need to build the understanding of the need for the project and engagement on taking the project forward. That engagement involves public consultation, which takes a long time.

Mr Robson said earlier that, when the slip road to the north of Laurencekirk was being built, the road contractor had an effective community engagement. What role did local communities play in the development of your transport strategy, particularly for the suggested trunk road improvements?

The transport strategy for the north-east has been particularly well consulted on over a number of years. Different views on what should be done and how were all taken on board and we developed up—this goes back into history—a modern transport system, which was consulted on. That modern transport system was the forerunner to the regional transport strategy, which was also consulted on and was approved in 2008. Recently, we have begun work on refreshing that strategy, which will be revised and extended a wee bit. Again, that is being consulted on. We have published a main issues report, which went out for consultation. We have recently agreed a draft revised strategy, which will be subject to consultation once we have produced the other complementary documents such as the strategic environmental assessment and the equalities impact assessment. That will happen in the next few weeks. There has been extensive consultation throughout.

The transport strategy at the local level is entirely complementary to the regional-based piece of work. We had an approved revised strategy just over a year ago. That was done in conjunction with community councils and local action groups, so there is a proactive engagement process to get views. The interesting thing is that we are probably in the fourth or fifth iteration of that document, so a number of the issues that are coming forward are ones that we have seen before. The changes between documents have lessened as we have developed them.

Derick, you said that, if the developer gets the go-ahead at the north, there will have to be improvements to that junction, which will be partially or wholly funded by developer contributions. There might still be access northbound by the slip road, but if there was a grade-separated junction at the south, there would surely be no right turn at the north. I presume that you would expect vehicles to go to the flyover or whatever it is and come back into Laurencekirk that way.

Over time, we should perhaps put in a grade-separated junction at the south, and once we have done that, I would have thought that we would want to consider closing the central reservation at the north end, so that people who want to access Laurencekirk from Aberdeen would go down to the grade-separated junction and then come back up to the north junction and come off there. As Laurencekirk is developed and the new houses are put in at the north, we could get developer contributions to help to take forward a grade-separated junction at the north if that was required.

Okay, but we could get a situation in which the development at the north is given the go-ahead and the developer is asked to make improvements at the north junction, but that, in effect, delays any development of a grade-separated junction at the south.

I would hope that that will not happen. I hope that Transport Scotland will make it a priority to upgrade the south junction regardless of whether there is development at the north of Laurencekirk, on the basis that the south junction requires upgrading now.

But did one of you not say that, despite the catch-22 situation at the south, if the development at the north gets the go-ahead, there will have to be improvements to that junction?

Yes, but I do not think that improvements to the north junction impact on or affect the case for the south junction. There will still be a lot of traffic coming out of Montrose and turning right, and there will still be a lot of traffic coming out of Laurencekirk and turning right to go south. That type of traffic would be less likely to move to the north. In fact, the Montrose traffic could not do that.

What role, if any, do your organisations have in funding improvements such as junction improvements at Laurencekirk?

Sorry. Can you explain that?

Nestrans does not really fall into this, but could Aberdeenshire Council and Angus Council contribute anything from their budgets to improvements to the junctions?

I cannot speak for the local authorities, but Nestrans would love to have that conversation with Transport Scotland. We have not had the opportunity to have that conversation yet.

As you know, convener, Angus Council improved the A92 between Dundee and Arbroath, and in fact funded it—we are still paying for it, of course. We therefore have experience in major road construction. I would have to say that Angus Council’s ability to use its budget to help to fund a road that it does not own and which is in another local authority area is limited.

Although there are a lot of people from your council—

Yes, there are but, at present, I would have to be honest and say that it would be a limited budget, if any, from Angus Council.

Aberdeenshire Council has that specific allocation of up to 885 houses at the north end of the town. Following negotiations with developers, there will then be contributions in relation to school provision, other associated impacts in the town and potential local road upgrades. That is all part and parcel of the package. There will also be a requirement to put in the upgraded junction at the north end.

We have had a similar experience elsewhere on the corridor, at Portlethen, where permission was given for about 850 houses. The developer, who is still in the process of building out that site, provided a full grade-separated junction access on to the A90 at Findon.

Was that fully funded by the developer?

Yes.

That was for 850 houses.

Yes, that was for 850 houses.

What is the number at Laurencekirk?

It is 885.

At the north end?

Yes. Four hundred will be built in the first period and 480 or thereabouts in the second period.

What about at the south end?

There is existing permission for 99 units to be built at the south end, with the condition attached to it that nothing can happen until there is a grade-separated junction. That puts the development in the context of the need to bring all those elements together. The council has endeavoured to bring forward the development side to provide an overall solution, and in an awful lot of what we have looked at, ultimately, over the longer term, we are looking at two junctions for the settlement in two locations.

The petition is about the south junction.

Yes.

That is what we are talking about. Why can you not say to the developer at the north end that their developer contribution will be a grade-separated junction at the south end?

Under the planning guidance and circulars relating to planning agreements and contributions, there has to be a direct impact. The advice that we have had—I am sure that George Chree will back me up on this—is that the contribution must be directly attributable to the impact of the development.

I go back to our earlier comments. We are of the view that there is an existing problem at the south junction; therefore, the discussions, the negotiations and the premise in the local development plan have focused on the development in the north dealing with the issue at the north end. There will be a benefit at the south end, in terms of rerouting in the first instance, but there is an existing problem there. That is why I said in my introductory remarks that we would never normally look at something as complex as this junction in isolation as a single junction. I know that the petition is about the single junction, but we have to look at more than one junction; we have to look at the overall capacity and purpose of this part of the network. I would invite Transport Scotland to carry out a “Design Manual for Roads and Bridges” stage 2 assessment. The other agencies would be happy to assist with that, and it would clearly identify the types of junctions and interventions needed. We have to look at it as more than just a road safety issue.

I am totally confused. You had a development of 800-plus houses at Hillside, in Portlethen, and you got the developer to pay the full cost of a grade-separated junction. You are talking about the same amount of development at the north end of Laurencekirk, yet you are not asking the developer to put in a grade-separated junction. It strikes me that you could get a grade-separated junction at the north end first, if you told the developer that you wanted a grade-separated junction there. I am not sure why you are not asking the developer to put in a grade-separated junction there although you asked for one at Hillside, in Portlethen. I know that that does not relate to the petition, which is about the south end, but why are you not asking for that? That would not solve the problem of the south junction, but it would help a bit with traffic in the area.

I apologise, convener. There is a requirement that it would have to be a grade-separated junction for the 885 houses at the north end. Ultimately, the matter sits with us as the planning authority and with Transport Scotland as the roads authority, and that would come forward as a specific requirement. I am sure that Mr Anderson and Mr Kenny will take the opportunity, in the next panel session, to clarify their views on the number of junctions that would be required to serve those 885 houses and anything at the south end.

12:15

I am not speaking on behalf of Aberdeenshire Council, but I have some experience of planning obligations, which is the new term for section 75 agreements. The Scottish Government has laid down specific and necessary tests on the imposition of planning obligations on developers. The legislation advises local authorities that

“Planning obligations should not be used to resolve existing deficiencies”.

Planning authorities cannot come along with a shopping list of existing deficiencies and expect the developer to pay for them. The test is whether a development would adversely affect a situation or create a new adverse situation. There was no grade-separated junction at Portlethen and no houses. Presumably, without the 850 houses at Porthlethen, the grade-separated junction would not be required, and therefore the developer paid for one.

Similarly, there is no grade-separated junction on the north side of Laurencekirk. Eight hundred houses would command such a junction and that is why the developer would be asked to provide one. The south is slightly more difficult, because there is an existing situation. The question is whether the developer would be required to contribute to that.

Developers can agree to do anything. There might be a benign developer who says, “I will contribute to a junction at the south end.” That remains to be tested by the planning authority. I am making the point that there are specific tests laid down in legislation regarding planning obligations.

Okay. To get this right, there could be a grade-separated junction at the north that would be developer funded. There are not enough houses in the current plans for that to happen at the south; however, through planning consent, there could be a developer contribution to a grade-separated junction.

Yes, that is my understanding.

Would you say that the plans are well co-ordinated, or should there be a review to take into account the different circumstances?

The statutory processes that we have undertaken on regional and local transport strategies, local development plans and the structured planning approach have been well co-ordinated. We have had the same message about what the requirements have been. There is a need at this point for greater co-ordination about what we want to put in on the ground on this section of an important trunk road.

Finally, Mr Chree, there are a number of grade-separated junctions between Dundee and Perth, with not much housing near the road. How were those paid for?

That is not my authority—I do not know.

You are a member of tactran—can you not tell us about it?

If I had to guess, I would say that they were paid for by Transport Scotland. As you know, there are grade-separated junctions between Dundee and Brechin. I do not think that they were funded by developer contributions.

Has there been a change in policy since those grade-separated junctions were installed?

Yes, it looks that way.

I want to ask a question that relates specifically to the Montrose economy. Unlike other towns in north Angus, Montrose has a strong link to the oil and gas industry, partly because it has major port capacity, where a number of major companies do fabrication work and other activities that are directly associated with the oil industry, which generates a lot of traffic—especially heavy goods vehicles. The Montrose economy is directly affected by an access issue with the A90 northward. There are three alternative routes—Brechin, the A92 north, and the point where the A937 meets the A90 at Laurencekirk, which remains a popular road. What is your opinion about Montrose’s access northward on to the A90?

Clearly, there are relationships between Montrose and Aberdeenshire and between Montrose and Aberdeen city because of the oil industry. We are experiencing an uplift in interest and activity, particularly in relation to offshore renewables. The Montrose economy is trying to position itself as a landfall base to service the wind turbines, should they come to pass. According to my colleague Mr Green’s figures, there are about 4,800 traffic movements daily from Montrose northwards. HGVs going to Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen—going northwards—account for about 10 per cent of those movements.

The rough split is that there are about 4,000 movements to Brechin, 4,800 movements to the north and about 4,300 movements to the A92, but there is clear connectivity, and we hope that the economy will grow in Montrose and in Montrose port.

In Montrose, as Mr Johnstone probably knows, housing development has not blossomed since 2008. In north Angus, Brechin, Montrose and Edzell, we are down to around 39 house completions a year, purely because of the economy. More land is being allocated than housing is being built. It is almost the reverse of Laurencekirk, so I do not really see a major impact coming in the next few years due to housing. However, the economy—and the vehicle movements that fuel the economy—will have an impact.

I expected to have to ask the panel how much more traffic there would have to be on the A90 before the building of a flyover would be triggered, but from what Mr Murray has already said, it seems that he believes that we are well past whatever that number might be. Can I confirm that?

Yes. My understanding of the current guidelines means that there is enough traffic there for a flyover. It is not just the traffic on the main road—you have also to take into account the traffic on the side roads. For the volume of traffic on the main road, we have more traffic on the side road than is needed to justify a grade-separated junction.

Before I ask you about how you have put that point to Transport Scotland, has anybody estimated how long it will be before the A90 at the Laurencekirk south junction becomes impossible to join? One of my colleagues asked earlier about how long it takes to join it. From the film that I made—which I am sure some people have seen—my rough estimate was that cars were taking eight minutes to get from the back of the queue from Marykirk that morning. Just standing there in the extreme cold watching the traffic, I got the impression that with an increase of 5 or 10 per cent in vehicles on the A90, nobody would be able to join it. There would just not be the gaps; it would be a full road and people will not be able to join it. That is my untutored estimate. Have you, as professionals, been able to estimate when it would just snarl up completely?

That is not how we look at the situation. We tend to look at where you start from—where the bottom point is—to work out when you require to move up to the next level of junction. We believe that we are beyond the point of moving to a grade-separated junction; we believe that the case has already been made. We do not tend to look at it from the perspective of coming down the other way.

Okay. Thank you. I will, in that case, pursue the obvious question. That seems to be your unambiguous view; I take it that Mr Wallace is entirely in agreement with that. Clearly, Transport Scotland is about to tell us that it disagrees. Can you explain from the Nestrans side how on earth there can be disagreement on that point? Why is it, given the view that you have just expressed, that—as I understand it—the Laurencekirk south junction is not on anybody’s list anywhere for a capital project that will be brought forward?

We take guidance from the “Design Manual for Roads and Bridges”, which means that we are looking at what would happen in the case of a new build—if a new junction was being designed. Transport Scotland can answer for itself, but I suspect that Transport Scotland is looking at the matter from an operational point of view; taking that point of view, it has introduced road safety measures to try to resolve the issue. It believes that it can justify the view that further development would provide funding to help to resolve the situation.

We have come to the conclusion that that is not going to happen and that Transport Scotland needs to go back and look at the issue from the perspective of the need for a grade-separated junction. Its view has always seemed to be that such a junction will be needed in the future.

In which case, what is your professional view of the 50mph limit, which has clearly been introduced for safety reasons and which, in its own way, seems to be working—although I acknowledge that a significant number of vehicles do not seem to be following it and are accelerating to the point of danger? How, from your side of the table, does its apparent permanence and the repeated letters from Transport Scotland saying, “Well, ministers set speed limits; that’s what they’ve set in this case; and that’s it. Full stop.” seem?

I would look at that from the perspective of Transport Scotland’s approach to the A9, where even though there is less traffic—and, one would assume, less traffic on the side-roads—it has decided to build a dual carriageway with grade-separated junctions. That decision will have been taken for good reasons, but we believe that what is good for the A9 will be good for the A90. If that is the view that has been taken, albeit on a new road, a retrospective view could be taken of the situation with regard to the Laurencekirk junctions.

There is a similar situation on the A96, which has been dualled between Aberdeen and Inverurie and about which Transport Scotland has said that it will take a retrospective look at the at-grade junctions into Blackburn and Kintore. We would hate for the rest of the A96 to have grade-separated junctions while the busiest bit of it still has at-grade junctions. Transport Scotland has accepted the view and we are simply asking it to extend that thinking to the A90.

As members have no more questions for our council representatives, I thank the witnesses for their evidence.

I welcome our third panel of witnesses: David Anderson is head of planning and design, and Laurence Kenny is head of development and strategic planning, in major transport infrastructure projects at Transport Scotland. Do either of you wish to make any opening remarks?

I thank you for the opportunity to talk to the committee and to answer members’ questions. I was interested to read in the Official Report of the previous meeting the reasons why you wanted us to come and give evidence. In that respect, we are in your hands.

How does Transport Scotland decide on its investment priorities for the trunk road network?

There are a number of different levels to our investment priorities. For road safety issues, we have an annual programme that examines places on the network where accidents happen within a 100m radius. We review those areas to find out what might be done to resolve such situations. Money for that annual review of the pattern of road accidents on the network and the actions that might be appropriate is allocated from the road safety budget, whereas Transport Scotland’s other investment in roads and indeed investment in general is governed by discussions with ministers. The amount that might be put to railways or capital roads is set out in our budget and will be the subject of another discussion. In this discussion, it might be helpful to think about road safety investments.

We heard the petitioners’ opinion that the risk assessment process is too hidebound by existing or historic records. The fact is that there has been a significant growth in traffic in the area, and the risk factors have built up to the point at which, if I may speak for the petitioners, accidents are waiting to happen at the junction. Why take the risk and allow that situation to develop? Why cannot we move now to put this development on to our priority list?

12:30

There are two elements to that. The first is that we look at the historical accident statistics according to a rolling three-year programme that is reviewed annually, and we ask what is happening. We do that because, when we put in a measure—we have heard a number of times about the measures that we have put in at the south junction at Laurencekirk, including 50mph limits—we monitor it to determine its effectiveness. On the monitoring report, the measures were implemented in May 2010 so, because we monitor on a three-year basis, the time will expire in May this year. We are continuing to monitor the situation; we will see the evidence and decide whether the measures have been successful. As we have heard, the slip lane at the northern end of Laurencekirk was built to allow traffic to accelerate to join the main line.

The second element relates to Mr MacDonald’s question about the future and development plans. I refer also to the convener’s question regarding the allocation of 885 houses in Laurencekirk. We engage with local authorities and transport authorities at the very earliest stages of setting strategic and local development plans. We ask them what their thinking is and we discuss the consequences of that thinking, as well as outlining our thinking about how the trunk network—road and rail—operates. We enter that dialogue to point out the consequences of their putting in a load of stuff at a certain place on the trunk network. We can see the result in Laurencekirk, particularly in relation to the allocation of 885 houses and the condition associated with a grade-separated junction.

There is another step in the sequence. As Mr Chree said, when development applications will impact on the trunk network, they are passed to Transport Scotland so that the impacts and how they can be mitigated can be considered; there is a well-accepted principle that developments should mitigate their impacts. Mr Wallace was referring to the condition that was initially set regarding the southern end of Laurencekirk: that the development there should not begin until such time as there was a grade-separated junction. As we have accepted, it is beginning to look as though that means that the development cannot be occupied until that point.

There are three stages. There is the very early thinking; there is the actual development; and there is the post-opening bit—meaning that we consider what is the right thing to do.

We heard evidence from the local authorities and others that the traffic flows there require a grade-separated junction whether or not there is any development in the pipeline. The question remains: why has that not been prioritised among Transport Scotland’s plans, given the growth of traffic and all the other factors that we have heard about this morning?

As I think Mr Murray accepted, the numbers that have been cited come directly from the “Design Manual for Roads and Bridges” and our guidance for new structures. I am about to agree with exactly what he said I would agree with: the A90 is an existing road. We undertook our survey in 2009, which videoed the junctions over a three-day or four-day period and asked where the potential conflicts were, and we obtained some very good data showing what was actually happening and which movements caused the greatest concern. As a result, we put in the measures that are now in place and that are being monitored.

We have not said that the solution at the south junction would be a grade-separated junction, given what we have at the moment; we have said that, for the level of flows at that time, the measures that we put in are the appropriate measures. The evidence appears to support us so far with regard to the number of accidents that have occurred there.

That does not mean—I think the convener touched on this—that, if intensification of land uses off the trunk road network were to happen, a grade-separated junction might not become the right answer in due course.

I think that you are saying that it must be a road safety issue—in other words, if there were more accidents, you might look at it again—or that there must be development, but we know that, at the south end of Laurencekirk, large developer contributions are not likely.

However, surely one of the roles of Transport Scotland, as an agency of the Scottish Government, is to look at sustainable economic growth. We know that Aberdeen is very busy. Montrose harbour has gone through a lot of reconstruction—it is becoming a sustainable port that could get a lot more business—but the Laurencekirk junction might be hindering economic growth in Montrose. Could Transport Scotland consider upgrading the junction from the point of view of sustainable economic growth and spreading a bit of the wealth of the north-east a bit further south?

I see where you are going. I come back to the point that considering the development planning aspect of the issue involves understanding the growth aspirations and plans for Montrose and looking at the consequences.

I think that Mr Chree suggested that the traffic from Montrose splits three ways as it moves towards the A90 corridor: one third goes up the A92, one third goes via Brechin and the rest goes to the A90 at Laurencekirk. We need to consider what that means when it comes to how best to exploit that opportunity.

I take the convener’s point. The issue can be about what the right solution would be if we were talking about putting a grade-separated junction on the A90 at the south junction at Laurencekirk, which is what the petitioner has asked for. When we reviewed the A90 as a corridor, that suggestion was considered as part of the strategic transport projects review. The issues for the A90, as a corridor between Dundee and Aberdeen, were to do with reducing road safety incidents to the average level—that is a terrible thing to say, but we are talking about the average—and looking at carbon emissions measures and the creation of opportunities to invest in rail freight and other means of transport.

Therefore, I think that I am agreeing with you. If we were talking about the installation of a grade-separated junction at Laurencekirk, we would be talking about the form that it would take, how best to do that and how best to fund it. However, we have not been tasked with installing a grade-separated junction at that location.

You have raised another interesting point. Have you measured the carbon emissions from vehicles that have to wait to get across the junction?

No.

Perhaps such an exercise should be undertaken.

You said that you have not been tasked with putting in a new junction. Who would task you to do that? What did you mean by that statement?

We have a programme of road projects that are being taken forward. The best-known ones are projects such as the dualling of the A9, but we also have a number of other projects that affect many constituencies. For example, Mr Ingram will be familiar with the Maybole bypass. Other projects around Scotland are part of the programme that ministers have agreed that we should take forward.

Those projects are set in the context of the infrastructure investment plan, which sets out a pipeline for forward investment and on which the committee heard evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities last week. It is about making that use of the projects that we are taking forward. As has been touched on, they take some time to deliver. Given the time that it takes to start analysis of any form of junction or road, the process takes at least two or three years, depending on how the approvals process comes to fruition. Such projects are not immediate things; they take some time, so we have a forward programme for delivery.

Mr Robson and the previous three witnesses said that the south junction at Laurencekirk meets the safety and capacity criteria for upgrading. Do you agree?

The evidence that we have gathered from the work that we have done suggests that the measures that we have put in manage the safety risk to the level that we have. The evidence in that regard is that, so far, we have seen a reduction in the number of accidents.

What about capacity?

That goes back to the point that the convener was asking about. If one is looking to the future, what is the trigger point at which one would make the major investment that would allow the movements to happen freely? That takes us back to the issue of the grade-separated junction.

One question is: when is a queue of eight minutes too long? We have not got into that discussion. Is the issue one of capacity? If it is, what is causing the increase? The surveys show that, as many people have said today, the traffic has increased threefold since the road was opened: there are something like 18,000 vehicles a day in each direction, with about 3,000 vehicles crossing the road. Those are the survey figures—somebody sat there and counted the vehicles.

Are we trying to make the road easier to use and, therefore, draw traffic to it? That relates to the impact of development in Laurencekirk, which would be informed by a transportation assessment that asked where those people would choose to go. Again, that would be a professional piece of work that examined how traffic moves around. The convener touched on that when she talked about people going either north or south. If you were to take action on the road in one direction or the other, you would affect the traffic patterns on and around the local roads and in Laurencekirk. Those factors need to be understood before we come to the answer.

How does Transport Scotland assess requests from local communities regarding trunk roads?

Interested parties tend to make requests in letters to MSPs or ministers, asking them to consider an issue. That goes into our thinking, and we consider how to convert that thinking into a plan. We have been looking back at the programme that I touched on, which sets out our priorities. Often, there will be calls to modify existing schemes. As you might imagine, we are engaged in a dialogue in relation to the upgrading and dualling of the A9, and we are asking ourselves what the implications of that are. Is it all about grade separation? What do we do about access? What do we do about the other issues? Often, calls for schemes are actually part of bigger programmes rather than stand-alone pieces of work, such as at Laurencekirk.

The comments that I heard from the other witnesses seemed to me to justify the upgrading of the junction. However, from the feedback that I am getting from you, it seems that, no matter what anybody else says, you have already decided that the junction does not meet the necessary criteria. I feel as if we have hit a brick wall in our discussion with you. There seems to be no room for manoeuvre, agreement, consultation or further consideration of the project. Do you agree that that is the case?

I hope that we are not being a brick wall, because we have heard this morning about how there is good dialogue among the professionals.

The issue is that, having been told that there is a problem that we should look at, we have done a considerable amount of work. We have looked at the surveys and conducted the cost refinement exercise that you are aware of, which estimates the cost of any new junction. There is a sense that, as Mr Wallace said, we must consider whether the piece of work is to be treated as a single, isolated item or as part of a wider consideration of the A90 corridor.

Thank you.

I presume that the report that will come back to you in May will have some influence over the decision whether to place the junction on Transport Scotland’s priority list.

Yes, it may.

On part of the A77, a 50mph speed limit was imposed, the central reservation was closed and speed cameras were installed, but that was done in anticipation of a development. The situation that you describe on the A90 seems equivalent to what happened with the A77, but we know that, on the A77, the actual work of putting in a grade-separated junction is about to start this year. Is the evidence that you are gathering from this exercise likely to have a significant impact on the decision whether to put the Laurencekirk project into the plan?

12:45

I think that we previously provided the committee with accident statistics for the A90 since the current measures were put in, although, as I said, those statistics do not cover the full three years. The statistics show that there have been no serious accidents at the southern junction, which suggests that the measures have been successful. Mrs McCulloch’s question was about whether the A90 as a corridor can achieve the strategic purpose of ensuring that the accident rates are no worse than for any other road, and what that means for the route. That would involve considering whether there might be a situation in which the improvements at the southern junction are the right thing to do at some point to allow sustainable economic growth to occur.

To continue with my comparison with the A77, as far as I am aware, there have been no serious accidents since the temporary restrictions were put in, but there were severe and fatal accidents on that stretch of road beforehand. Therefore, your point about the particular restrictions that have been put in place on the A90 does not equate with the situation on the A77, where there is a commitment to do something with the road. How do you square that circle?

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your point, but I think that we are saying the same thing. I am saying that the consideration of a pre-existing issue resulted in a series of measures being implemented, which appear to have been successful. The question then is about what one might do in the future to deal with additional development. Part of the work that we are doing is about considering the development plans in Aberdeenshire and Angus. There are a number of plans in the area, such as at Fordoun airfield, Edzell Royal Air Force base, the port of Montrose and Laurencekirk. That work is about understanding the consequences of those plans for the trunk road network and then considering the right solution to deal with those.

In essence, are you saying that we are not going to take forward improvements to this stretch of road until we can access developer contributions?

When the reporters provided information on the Aberdeenshire local plan, they said that the access improvements at the north junction at Laurencekirk should be developer funded, as the need for them is occasioned by the increase in traffic that is associated with the development there. I think that that is about all that I am saying.

All our previous witnesses indicated that there was enough justification, given the evidence, for this particular junction to be included in the strategic transport projects review in some way, shape or form. Why was it not included?

The junction was considered as part of that appraisal, but it did not meet the corridor-level criterion—remember that the STPR looked at the corridor level—of reducing accident statistics on the corridor as a whole. I take the point about accident statistics at that locale, but the STPR looked at the corridor level, and in this case, the corridor is between Dundee and Aberdeen.

I will ask you the same question that I asked the previous panel. Between Perth and Dundee there are three, if not more, grade-separated junctions with less housing on either side of the road than at Laurencekirk. However, at Laurencekirk, we have a stretch of 20 miles, which is about the same distance as between Perth and Dundee, that has no grade-separated junctions. How did we get to that point?

To be honest, that situation arose before Transport Scotland came into existence. I would be happy to find out and write to the committee about how that came about. I do not have a good answer for you just now.

Okay. Can you also tell us who paid for those junctions and whether there has been a change in policy?

I can summarise what was done in that case for the committee’s information. Five grade-separated junctions were provided on that stretch of road. One was at Longforgan, which is a fairly big community so I suspect that the level of use justified the junction. There was one near the small village of Inchture, which is significantly smaller than Laurencekirk, and there were three others positioned in rural communities that are so small that I cannot name them and at which there are no significant built-up areas. There has been no development in those areas since the construction of the junctions.

We will await the Government’s written reply.

I want to recap what you said, Mr Anderson. Would you consider moving the upgrade of the road to the top of your list of priorities if there were, God forbid, fatal accidents on the road?

No one wants there to be accidents. No one is designing roads to hurt people. No one is trying to injure people. We are trying to use a system that allows us to see where best to spend the resources that we have for road safety issues. I do not accept that we have to do this, then that and then that. We are looking at the whole network and using the same process to look across the network to ensure that we operate it as safely as we can.

Your review is to be held in May 2013. Could the committee receive a copy of it?

Certainly.

The original petition was about safety issues. We just do not want accidents to happen. I understand your comment about the network and how the Government has to prioritise on that basis. You will appreciate that we—especially me—have drawn the conclusion that there will never be enough development at the south junction to pay for a grade-separated junction with what used to be section 75 money. That position was summed up earlier.

I will take the slightly different tack that I started to take earlier. If the traffic heading north or north-east up that road in the morning rises by a fraction—I do not know how big that fraction would be; you will have heard my previous question—it will become impossible for traffic for Marykirk to cross. Does Transport Scotland do those calculations? If so, could you do such a calculation in this case, bearing in mind the fact that although the AWPR is designed to remove traffic from Aberdeen, it will certainly increase the traffic flow? On the development of the north-east, we know that it is the only region of Scotland that is expanding. Everything we know tells us that the amount of traffic on the A90 will increase. Everything that we have heard tells us that there is a pre-existing problem, despite your accident statistics, which do not reflect the inherent dangers of the situation—thankfully, people are being careful. At what point will the traffic flow tell you that we need a grade-separated junction?

Laurencekirk has become a case in which those calculations might be performed. We do not run them routinely on every junction on the trunk road network, because that would be impossible.

The other issue is the way in which drivers react to congested junctions. We have heard that there are a number of routes. In considering the impacts of developments, modelling would tell us that people look for alternatives if they cannot get through a junction at a reasonable pace. I think that there would be some re-routing, and because people would find other routes, the situation that you describe could be further into the future than you expect. People may use the A92 or do other things—perhaps they would change their travel times. People adapt to the situation with which they are presented.

I know that that does not perfectly answer your point, but making an absolute determination of when something will reach capacity is often a dangerous science. That rarely comes to pass because people adapt to changing circumstances.

I am sure that that is true. People will behave in such a way that they will not have to use a junction that they perceive they will not get across. However, it will not come as a surprise to you that I, as the MSP for Angus North and Mearns, am not especially impressed by the idea that, because there is not a flyover at Laurencekirk south, people will finish up driving through Brechin, which happens to be my home town—my home city—or going up the A92 right the way round. I can visualise every inch of that road. At the very least, we would not want heavy goods vehicles and other heavy traffic going on such roads.

Especially the bridge over the North Esk.

Indeed. There are a number of technical reasons for that that anybody who knows the location will understand. I understand that, mathematically, that is what people will do, but that is certainly not what we want them to do. It adds miles, corners and danger.

I will ask the question in a different way. At what point in the future and by what criterion would Transport Scotland say, “Yes, we should have a grade-separated junction there”?

I think that Mr Wallace suggested that we could have a look at the development plans for that corridor and think through what the solution might be for a number of areas between Brechin and Aberdeen. I am happy to have discussions with the councils to see what the right strategy might be. I do not know whether the right strategy would be one junction or more junctions at Laurencekirk, but I am more than happy to have those discussions and to continue to discuss the issue with the councils.

Do you nonetheless accept that, on the A937 from Montrose through Marykirk, the south junction is a particular point that cannot be moved? The traffic cannot be re-rerouted to a north junction. Do you accept that that point has to be dealt with?

As you say, it is a junction on the network, and it is likely to remain a junction on the network. We are discussing the form of that junction.

Sadly, you have not offered me any hope that my point will be dealt with at any time soon.

Surely you do not want people to move to other junctions, as that would simply make the problem worse. If we followed your logic, we could end up with 50mph stretches at the other junctions, which would become more dangerous, as people move from the junction in question.

I was going to make that very point. We heard from earlier witnesses that there is a strong possibility that traffic could move to alternative junctions as opposed to using the junction in question. There continue to be fatalities at the other junctions, of course. The most recent of those was just over a week ago, at the Powburn junction, which is only 2 miles further up the road. I believe that the investigation into that is continuing. Although the cars that were involved in the fatality were using the A90, the accident may have been caused by a car accessing the junction from a side road.

What action is Transport Scotland taking to monitor the accidents at the south junction and any increases in the number of accidents and/or fatalities at adjacent junctions in the area?

As I have said, that is part of our standard process of looking at the network as a whole and at what we call a moving cursor programme, which identifies accidents and considers them on an on-going basis to see whether there is a recurring theme. We look at not just fatal accidents but serious and slight accidents. We monitor each type of accident and put that information into the process.

As no one else has questions, I thank all the witnesses very much. I have let the session run on quite a bit, and I suggest that we delay any further consideration until we get the letter from Transport Scotland and have a look at the Official Report of the meeting, because a lot has been said.

We will carry on while the gentlemen leave the room, if they do not mind, as we are running behind schedule.