Good news this last week that the Aberdeenshire Council spending on the AWPR has been capped at £75m. The Alliance are committed to the project and have been working hard to progress it.

Aberdeenshire Council’s deputy leader, Martin Kitts-Hayes, said that although it was a cost the local authority would prefer was met by the government, a deal had been agreed a decade ago.

He added: “It’s a lot of money, we would much prefer the Scottish government to pay the £75m but we did agree back in 2003 that each of the councils would pay the 9%.

“Clearly at that time we were talking somewhere in the region of £30-32m so £75m is a lot of money to find, particularly in these difficult economic times, but Aberdeenshire Council is absolutely committed to the AWPR and we have already put £10m aside as part of that and we are borrowing up to £70m so we are confident that we will be able to find the money to make sure this happens and without that impacting on the services we provide to our council taxpayers.’’