Is it needed?

The planned dual carriageway at Forres is part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to dualling the entire A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen. However, many people feel that while there are sections of the A96 which are undoubtedly bottlenecks, Forres is not one of them. In addition to this, the Government’s own Strategic Business Case (2014) states that end-to-end dualling of the A96 does not give best cost/benefit analysis.

One local resident summed this up in a post on the Facebook page Forres Says No to A96 Dualling:

The Design Manual for Roads & Bridges (DMRB) is the road builder's ‘bible’ on what to build and how to build it. [...] The DMRB is quite clear that, for the volume of traffic passing through Forres, there is no requirement for a dual carriageway bypass.

The 47 page "Strategic Business Case" (SBC) published in 2014 [..] states that the option of "end to end" dualling DOES NOT give the best cost/benefit analysis. However, complete dualling is recommended because "This option achieves the ambitions set out by the Scottish Ministers of connecting Scottish Cities by dual carriageway".

There had to be a Strategic Business Case because that is required for 'due process', but the answer was known before pen was put to paper because the [Scottish] Government had already said it wanted Aberdeen and Inverness linked by a dual carriageway. There are 47 pages of data and analysis that say it is not worth spending an extra £1billion (latest estimate, SBC stated £650m in 2014) and 1 paragraph saying that it is.

There is no doubt (because the DMRB says so) that Elgin and Nairn need a bypass and the volume of traffic supports a dual carriageway. There is no doubt (again confirmed by the DMRB) that Keith needs a bypass, but a single carriageway bypass will more than cope with the traffic volume. Forres has a bypass, single carriageway and completely adequate for the volume......and the DMRB says so!

97% of the traffic volume on the A96 is used for journeys inside the corridor (numbers from the SBC). Only 3% of the vehicles are doing the full Aberdeen to Inverness journey. Therefore a proper Strategic Business Case would have looked at the varying sections of road that make up the 97% and designed road upgrades that suit the local needs and demands. Instead we have a perfect solution proposed for the 3%.