Options costing up to £50 million to deal with a notorious junction in the North-east are set to be heard by councillors.

Members of the Formartine area committee will be informed about the latest Fraserburgh, Peterhead and Ellon to Aberdeen Strategic Transport Study tomorrow.

The report offers a number of rail and road transport solutions for the north of Aberdeenshire.

Undertaken by Nestrans, the transport body is looking to reduce journey times.

Options include studying a potential rail link for Ellon and the dualling of the A90 at the Toll of Birness.

Research has been undertaken to look at ways to deal with the notorious A90 junction.

Six plans have been put on the table including a floyover junction.

In a report to councillors, director of the infrastructure services committee Stephen Archer said some short-term solutions could be implemented costing between £10m and £15m.

Proposals include adding a roundabout to the Toll of Birness and at Cortes as well as general safety improvements on the A90 and A952.

Long term options including work on the Ellon bypass, which could cost more than £30m.

Mr Archer said: “As further local growth and development is achieved and the Local Development Plan allocations built out, additional interventions may be necessary, namely dualling of the A90 from Ellon to Toll of Birness (in the medium term) and of the A90 Ellon bypass (longer term).

“The estimated cost of the entire option package is in the range of £35m to £52m, with the highest benefits derived if interventions are designed to have their construction order phased.”

It was found that traffic flow between Ellon and the Toll of Birness was “in excess of those recommended for a single carriageway” and that the dualling of the carriageway was “justifiable”.

As well as dualling the road being one of the six options, the report recommended a phased dualling of the A90 bypass, upgrading the Toll of Birness to a roundabout or flyover, upgrading the Cortes junction to a two-lane roundabout, improving the A90/A948 and A90/B9005 roundabouts plus safety improvements and overtaking lanes at key locations.

Ellon councillor Gillian Owen has been campaigning for road improvements at the notorious site for years after a number of fatal collisions.

She has been calling for the road to be dualled all the way to Peterhead and been running the Why Stop at Ellon campaign.

Last week the councillor hit out at the state of the A90 between Ellon and Peterhead saying the road surface was in a bad condition.