Motorists and businesses will have to wait longer than expected to realise the benefits of a major new bypass being built to the west of Aberdeen after the Scottish Government revealed delays to the project.

 

The 58km long Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route / Balmedie to Tipperty scheme had been due to fully open this spring but is now not expected to be ready until the autumn.

 

Contractors building the bypass say the delay is down to the impact of Carillion’s collapse and the effect of extreme weather events.

 

Before going into liquidation in January, Carillion had been part of the Aberdeen Roads Ltd (ARL) consortium with Balfour Beatty and Galliford Try, which won the contract for the project in 2014. The remaining partners are now carrying on with the works, having taken on around 90% of Carillion’s former employees. 

 

Recent extreme weather during caused further delays to the programme earlier this month, while the impacts of Storm Frank at the end of 2015 represented an earlier setback.

 

Scotland’s Economy Secretary Keith Brown said: “While this revision to the opening date is very disappointing to the people of North East Scotland, we have to accept the expert advice of our contractors on the ground who are delivering this significant project.” 

 

He added that Transport Scotland will work closely with ARL to open sections of the road “at the earliest opportunity”.

 

“Once open, the scheme will cut congestion in and around Aberdeen city, with a positive impact on reducing emissions and improving active travel. It will also improve connectivity in the region, providing better journey time reliability, particularly for those travelling from the north of the city to the south side,” he said.

 

Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce chief executive Russell Borthwick urged greater clarity over the opening date. “We understand large scale, complex developments of this nature can be affected by delays,” he said.

 

But he added: “It’s only a matter of weeks ago that we were being told the opening date was still Spring 2018 while most casual observers could see this was unlikely. Now we are told by the Minister that August is the date but meantime Transport Scotland advisors are warning it’s more likely to be ‘late Autumn’. So we still don’t really know.”

 

Freight Transport Association’s head of policy for Scotland Chris MacRae said: “The Aberdeen bypass is an important infrastructure project, and news of its opening being postponed is disappointing for the many logistics operators who use the route. FTA hopes that the project will be completed as quickly as possible.”

 

Transport Scotland’s project manager for the Aberdeen bypass Douglas Laird confirmed that the agreed cost of ARL’s contract is fixed, and as such there has been no change to the overall project budget of £745M due to the delay.