WATCH: Impact of A9 tragedies is ‘devastating’, says Fergus Ewing
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Fergus Ewing has said the impact on families of losing loved ones on the A9 are “just devastating” as he said “each one a tragedy, an absolute tragedy – every single one.”
The people of the Highlands are now “due” an apology according to the Inverness and Nairn MSP, after the Scottish Government said it would fail to dual the A9 by the deadline of 2025.
He said that “we made a promise and we didn’t keep it and it is not a small thing it is a huge thing, which affects people people’s lives” – some of whom he knew but now was the right time for the government to admit it made a mistake.
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“Like many Courier readers, many people in the Highlands, I have known families who have lost a loved one in incidents,” he said.
“I know of one that happened many many years ago and one that happened just last year. I am not going to name names but this does have a personal impact on everybody. The impacts on the families involved are just devastating.
“Last year 13 people lost their lives, in each case a family devastated, each one a tragedy, an absolute tragedy – every single one – and all but one occurred in single carriageway stretches so this is quite literally a matter of life and death.”
Due to the seriousness of the issue he believes it is time for the government to say sorry – something it has not done yet as it blamed Brexit, the war in Ukraine, inflation, and the pandemic.
“I do think an apology is due because after all we made a promise and we didn’t keep it,” he said. “And it is not a small thing, it is a huge thing, which affects people’s lives and I do think in life that the big thing to do is say ‘look, I am sorry, we are going to fix it.’”
