Dave Thompson MSP

Highlands and Islands MSP Dave Thompson has expressed his disappointment that there has been no response to his reply to a fellow Highland politician's invite to a public forum on a new bypass for Inverness.

Although two successive Liberal Democrat Transport Ministers under the previous Labour / Liberal Scottish Executive failed to produce any progress on the bypass, the A9 or the A96 during their eight years with influence over the country's transport network, Mr Alexander has decided to make the issue a key plank of his campaign to retain his seat at Westminster, which has no influence over transport matters in Scotland.

Despite this, Mr Thompson emailed Mr Alexander over a week ago to accept the invitation and to suggest that, as a locally-resident politician who has campaigned on the issue since 2002, he should also be invited to speak from the platform.

In his email, he also asked whether the Liberal Democrat politician planned to invite a "non party political" figure to chair the meeting and asked how much involvement Highland Council, as the lead agency in developing the road, would have.

He concluded by asking how long would be allocated to him to address the meeting but unfortunately more than a week later Mr Alexander has so far failed to acknowledge Mr Thompson's reply and questions.

"I am very disappointed that after a week, Mr Alexander has failed to even acknowledge my reply," he said.

"I have been, and indeed still am, willing to work with all interested parties to get progress on this important issue but there has to be concern that this meeting has been arranged as a party political stunt to further Mr Alexander's standing by criticising an issue neglected for eight years by his party colleagues and over which the parliament to which he seeks election has no influence."

Mr Thompson was also concerned to see reports of Mr Alexander's claim that there had been only one meeting on the issue since last spring. Noting that Alasdair Dods chief exec of HC confirmed in a letter that there had been three discussions with Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson - two face to face meetings and one over the telephone - and one meeting of the stakeholders group as well as well as regular contact between Government and Council officials.

The chief executive also confirmed that Highland Council had allocated £3.5 million towards the cost of planning the road and had carried £2.836 million of this forward to next year's planning budget. The local authority has also allocated a further £28 million of funding for the project over the next two years - made up of 14 million of Scottish Government funding and the same figure from other sources.