Scottish Transport Minister, Keith Brown, has announced that the consortium Connect Roads has been selected as the preferred bidder to develop the £745 million Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie-Tipperty PPP road scheme.

The winning consortium is formed by Balfour Beatty Investments, Carillion Private Finance and Galliford Try.

The team beat out competition from three other shortlisted teams:

• Granite City: Macquarie Capital & Vialia,
• North East Roads Partnership: Cintra Infrastructures SA & Bilfinger Projects  & Investments and
• Scotia Roads Group: BAM PPP & Costain & Iridium & Sir Robert McAlpine Capital.

On January 3 2014 the funding agreement was achieved. The Scottish Government confirmed its 81% share of £745 million costs. The Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council's 9.5% share is capped at £75 million. 

The construction of the new 58km road is due to begin later this year with completion expected in Spring 2018.

Mr Brown stated:

Following the Supreme Court ruling, we said we would complete works on the AWPR scheme by spring 2018. The announcement today ensures we remain well on course, with the contract expected be awarded and construction starting in earnest before the year is out.

The Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route is a key component of the planned Modern Transport System and Regional Transport Strategy to provide improved and integrated transport in the North East of Scotland. Of strategic important for the immediate area and Scotland as a whole, the project will help tackle congestion and increase accessibility.

The PPP road project aims to improve travel conditions and reduce congestion in and around Aberdeen, where an estimated 43,000 cars take to the road every day. The road consists of four sections:

• Balmedie to Tipperty section which has with a total length of 12km from Blackdog to Tipperty
• Northern Leg section which has with a total length 16.1km from North Kingswells to Blackdog
• Southern Leg section which has with a total length 18.7km from Charleston to North Kingswells
• Fastlink section which has with a total length 11.5km from Stonehaven to Cleanhill

Construction of the AWPR/B-T route will include 12 junctions, two river crossings at the River Dee and River Don, an underbridge for crossing the Aberdeen to Inverness Railway, four major pipeline crossings and three wildlife bridges in addition to more than 100 other structures.