Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has apologised for the failure to achieve the dualling of the A9 by 2025.

The road, which runs from the Falkirk Council area all the way north to Thurso, has been dubbed Scotland's most dangerous due to the frequency of fatalities and crashes on its length, particularly in sections where it switches from dual carriageway to single.

The number of people killed in crashes on the route between Inverness and Perth rose to its highest level in 20 years in 2022 when 13 people lost their lives on the 112-mile stretch.

In 2011 the Scottish Government pledged to dual the road in its entirety, with the scheme to be completed in 2025.

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However, in December last year it was announced that the project would not be completed until a full decade after the original target.

Holyrood's petitions committee has been taking evidence on the major delays to the project, and on Wednesday heard from Ms Sturgeon.

The former First Minister said: "I am sorry that we haven’t dualled, or won’t dual, the A9 by 2025. I regret that.

“I think the people in the Highlands have every right to feel the way they do about that, not just because it’s a target that was set and not met, but the nature of the project and the reasons for the commitment to dualling the A9 was so serious in terms of safety and obviously the loss of life.”

Ms Sturgeon added, however: "I do not accept that the failure to meet that target was because we didn’t bother and we weren’t trying to meet that target.”

The proposal to dual the road was criticised by the SNP's former government partners, the Scottish Greens, as being incompatible with the country's net zero targets.

However, Ms Sturgeon insisted that had no bearing on the delays to the project.

The former SNP leader said the delay was "not about the Greens being government or because we downgraded the priority of that for some consideration of climate and emissions targets".

She said it was not until late 2022 or early 2023 that it became clear there was no chance of meeting the original timeframe, but did accept that the government “maybe took too long to accept it wasn’t possible”.