Engineers have warned that red tape and processes “slow down critical infrastructure projects” across Scotland as SNP ministers were blamed for the A9 dualling project failures.

The Scottish Government pledged to dual the A9 from Perth to Inverness by 2025.

But Transport Secretary Mairi McAllan has announced that completing the dualling of the A9 between Inverness and Perth is being delayed by 10 years until 2035.

The total cost of the project at April 2024 prices is now estimated at £3.7 billion, a £700 million increase from the original estimate of £3 billion forecast back in 2008.

To complete the project, a new hybrid way of funding the road-building project will be used, with some of the construction work involving private investment using a mutual investment model developed by the Welsh government.

The industry body for civil engineers in Scotland, has warned that the A9 vision was reasonable to be completed on time – but a lack of funding and “political will” derailed progress.

Speaking at Holyrood’s Citizen Participation and Public Participation and Petitions Committee, Grahame Barn, chief executive of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association (CECA) Scotland, was asked why the original timescales for the A9 dualling project was not kept to.

Mr Barn said: “The political will to provide the funding required to do the job just wasn’t there when required.

“I believe the target was achievable. It was difficult and challenging but I believe it was achievable.”

He added that “other political priorities, perhaps, took over”.

Mr Barn said: “Funding might have been diverted away or funding was never there in the first place to be able… to allow it to be completed within the timeframe.”

Committee convener, Jackson Carlaw, asked Mr Barn if there was enough “clarity” around what the A9 project “would encompass” and whether there was “vagueness about different sections” of the project.

Mr Barn stressed that “there was a promise made and almost from a political standpoint, job done”, but suggested not enough attention was given to “the difficulty now is delivering on that promise”.

Mr Barn was pressed over whether the current approval process for major road and infrastructure projects in Scotland was “fit for purpose”.

In response, he said: “I think there are too many occasions when the statutory processes that we go through tend to slow down critical infrastructure projects across Scotland.”

He added that the “planning system needs to be looked at seriously” to ensure that “the country has the infrastructure in place that it needs”.