Completion of the long delayed £750M Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route is being brought forward by six months by Transport Scotland and Connect Roads has been confirmed as contractor for the scheme which will create some 1,000 construction jobs.
Work on the AWPR had been held up by a legal challenge which meant that the project was due to be completed in spring of 2018. Infrastructure, Investment and Cities Secretary Keith Brown has now announced that it will be finished in the winter of 2017.
Mr Brown said the speedy progress of procurement of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie-Tipperty (AWPR/B-T), which is the biggest yet to use Scotland’s Non Profit Distributing model, was "unprecedented". This model is based on the private finance initiative but places caps on profits.
The project will carry traffic 28 miles around the city and includes a second road from Stonehaven in the south and the dualling of the A90 between Balmedie and Tipperty in the north.
The contractors in the Connect Roads consortium, which comprises Balfour Beatty Investments, Carilion Private Finance and Galliford Try, each put up around £20M of the equity investment and carry out the construction work in joint venture. Balfour Beatty will manage and maintain the new roads on behalf of the consortium for 30 years.
Mr Brown said: "Following the shortest procurement processes for a contract of this size and complexity - it has been just 23 months since the contract was put to the market - we have now been able to also bring the completion date forward to winter 2017."
Mr Brown said the project would boost the north-east economy by some £6 billion and create about 14,000 jobs over the next 30 years, including more than 1,000 construction jobs.
