Consultation
Introduction
The STAG process is firmly founded on participation and consultation. Accordingly, public engagement has been pivotal to inform the A96 Corridor Review at all key stages. A comprehensive stakeholder engagement plan was developed at an early stage in the review process and has been carefully devised to ensure general representation of key businesses and organisations.
There has been engagement throughout the Corridor Review in order to provide early opportunities within appropriate timeframes for opinions to be expressed on the transport intervention options for the A96 corridor as they have developed.
Public Consultation
During the course of the A96 Corridor Review, there has been extensive public engagement. An initial four-week public consultation was held from 12 May 2022 to 10 June 2022. During this period, the public and stakeholders were invited to share insights into travel habits, general thoughts on travel and transport along the corridor and identify problems and potential opportunities along the route.
In total, 4,687 responses were received via the online consultation survey and email responses. A detailed overview of the findings are available in the Stakeholder and Public Engagement Consultation Report (Transport Scotland, 2022).
Stakeholder Engagement Activities
As part of the ongoing engagement with stakeholders, a series of stakeholder engagement sessions were held via an online collaboration platform to understand the views of different stakeholder groupings throughout the corridor. All sessions were attended by Jacobs AECOM representatives and split by the following stakeholder groupings:
- representatives from the four local authorities and Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS)
- environmental stakeholders, including local authority Environmental Planners
- North East Scotland Transport Partnership (Nestrans) and Aberdeenshire Council
- representatives from statutory environmental groups
- representatives from active travel and accessibility stakeholders
- representatives from business and business organisation stakeholders
- representatives from Stagecoach
- representatives from Police Scotland.
Business Workshop Engagement Activities
A consultation workshop was held for the Partial BRIA on 15 March 2023, following the issue of the initial draft Partial BRIA to 20 businesses and organisations. The workshop was attended by representatives from The Highland Council, Moray Council, HITRANS and Nestrans.
Summary of Findings
There was a clear consensus that policy and guidance should be reviewed as part of the Partial BRIA, giving particular focus to NPF4 and the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. These documents have now been considered as part of Chapter 4: Legislation and Policy Context in this document.
In addition, some stakeholders requested that more detail should be included in regard to the presence of different industries in the area, such as manufacturing and renewable energy. In response to this, Chapter 5: Baseline Summary now considers business counts data to build a clearer picture of businesses and industries present in the study area. Analysis has also been undertaken about the reliance of industries on the A96 Trunk Road.
Finally, it was suggested that although the initial draft Partial BRIA was a useful document to set out the context in relation to business in the area and high-level considerations, another Partial BRIA (this document) should be drafted to be used to consult more widely with stakeholders. A full BRIA would then be undertaken on options taken forward to the next stage of design and assessment.