Transport Scotland’s planned dual carriageway over the battlefield at Killiecrankie has received damning criticism from all the key bodies who play a role in conservation of historical sites.

In total 183 objections were received, including one apiece from Historic Environment Scotland (HES), Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust (PKHT), Perth and Kinross Council (PKC), Cairngorms National Park Authority (CNPA), Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), heritage and archaeology groups, historians and KilliecrAnkie1689, a local residents group. See Objections page
KilliecrAnkie1689, opposes the planned route for the A9 road-widening project on the Killiecrankie battlefield. The group is in favour of upgrading the A9 but is campaigning for Transport Scotland to abandon this ill-conceived design. It is clear from the objections that Transport Scotland and design engineers, Jacobs, have signally failed to take proper account of the battlefield when preparing plans for the A9 at Killiecrankie.

Besides the concerns already listed in our objection – all of which are repeated in HES’s comprehensive submission – are additional qualms about the integrity of the process. Jacobs commissioned an archaeological geophysical survey to investigate the potential for buried archaeological remains over 4 days in November 2016. Possible burial pits were identified on the very route that is proposed for the A9 on the battlefield. Details of these possible graves were buried deep in an Appendix of the Environmental Statement delivered with the final plans in November 2017. HES reckons that the pits could be “highly significant”. If verified, they “would form a special quality and [the A9] design should seek to preserve them in situ”.

The A9 dualling project is complex but at Killiecrankie it is remarkably simple to rank features in importance. The battle site is listed in the Inventory of Scottish Battlefields which gives it a status not found elsewhere in the project. This should have been the central concern of the design. Instead, methodology, data collection, documentary evidence, surveys, assessments, evaluations and conclusions concerning the impacts on the battlefield have all been found wanting.

Tinkering with a bad design by offering token mitigation will not transform this into a good design. The plan and the process are flawed. Degradation of such an important cultural asset would be a shameful legacy of a botched transport project.

This website attempts to give a snapshot of the situation now. You can navigate to webpages on the objections, the process and the pits by following the menu bar along the top. On the column on the right are archived pages concerning the history of the battle, the proposed route, the protective framework that exists in Scotland today and a link to our video.