Aberdeenshire residents yesterday had their say on ambitious £475million plans to upgrade the main road through the region.
Transport Scotland wants to make the A96 between Inverurie and Inverness a dual carriageway in the hope of improving safety and alleviating traffic congestion.
The 99-mile route is single carriageway north of Inverurie for 86 miles towards the Highland capital.
Engineering firm Jacobs is carrying out a preliminary assessment on behalf of Transport Scotland and has filtered its options for the first stage of the scheme down to four.
These include a new dual carriageway between Blackburn and Huntly and another between Forres and Fochabers.
The company is also considering an Elgin bypass, or a route between Glens of Foudland and Inverurie.
Locals got a chance to view the proposals at Huntly’s Gordon Arms Hotel yesterday in the first of several consultations in the north-east.
Transport Scotland’s A96 dualling programme manager Alisdair Graham said: “The purpose of today is to provide the public with the opportunity to comment on the assessment. This is the first stage in a three-stage process that we undertook.
“The feedback we have received so far has been largely positive. One of the major considerations of the A96 is access routes to fields and properties, there are over 100 of these along the A96.”
Among those in attendance yesterday was retired teacher Ron Doughty, 80, who stays at Pitcaple with his wife, Margaret.
He said: “This work is definitely needed, in some parts an awful lot more than others.
“The traffic is really escalating now that the new housing is going up around Inverurie and places like Oyne.
“I have seen the traffic pile up from Chapel of Garioch to the Inveramsay Bridge.”
Huntly-based music publisher, Peter Dickie, 63, said: “I am impressed by the number of proposals they have made and the amount of background information we are able to take away.
“The amount of traffic on that road is really far too heavy for a road linking the major cities of Aberdeen and Inverness.”
Colpy farmer, John Green, 64, said: “Last year my brother came up and wanted to go to Culloden on a Sunday morning. You can imagine the traffic in July, we were queuing for hours.
“I travel from Colpy to Inverurie for work and in the last four years it has been taking that much longer to get into Thainstone. It can take you an hour and a half to get from Aberdeen to Colpy.”
His wife, Jan Green, 49, said: “It needs doing, because of the amount of traffic on the road. It is greatly needed.”
Gordon MPAlex Salmond welcomed the progress on the scheme, adding: “The dualling of the A96 will increase safety, speed up journey times and open up the north-east for business.
“We can already see the progress being made to allow two-way traffic at Inveramsay, with the works due to be complete early next year.”
It is hoped the dualling will be completed by 2030, alleviating pressure around the main communities on the route at Inverurie, Huntly, Keith, Elgin, Forres, Nairn and Inverness.