New research has revealed Scotland's strategic trunk roads network contributes around £1.38 billion to the economy each year.

A new report from the Transport Research Laboratory states trunk roads support over 31,000 jobs in the country, including those in construction and maintenance.

Speaking at conference on transport and infrastructure in Edinburgh today, 15 March, Transport Minister Humza Yousaf said the report underlines the importance of Scotland's trunk road network to key industries.


"The Scottish Government and Transport Scotland are firmly committed to the operation of our strategic roads and by the end of this financial year we will have spent more than £8.2bn to make sure they are safe and efficient with twenty-three major improvements projects and more than 250 lane km of trunk road constructed since 2007," he said.

"This on-going investment is coming to fruition on many of our major projects, including the Queensferry Crossing, the M8 M73 M74 Motorway Improvements Project and the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie-Tipperty project. We are also increasing the maintenance budget by more than a third in the coming year to make sure that our key industries can continue to use the trunk roads to their full advantage."

(LM/MH)