The B9175 runs down the Nigg Peninsula in Easter Ross.
Route
Nigg level crossing,
The route starts at the Nigg Roundabout on the A9 between Invergordon and Tain. The roundabout is so named as it is the junction leading to Nigg, despite being several miles from the village itself. From the roundabout, the route heads south east to cross the railway at a level crossing at the site of the former Nigg Station, and then through Arabella, a very low-lying settlement at the head of Nigg Bay. At a junction known as Ankerville Corner, from where an unclassified road lead east towards the Seaboard villages of Ballintore and Hilton, the route curves south west, round the base of the hills below Nigg village, and drops down to the shore for a mile or so, before reaching a fabrication yard and port, Nigg Energy Park. It is not much further to Nigg Ferry, from where the ferry crosses in the summer months to Cromarty and the A832.
The terminus of the B9175 at Nigg Ferry
History
The route between what is now the A9 and Nigg Ferry was not classified in the 1922 roads listings. Before the A9 was extended north in 1935, everything north of Inverness was in Zone 8, which is why when this route was first classified in the late 1920s it became part of the B863. This didn't follow exactly the same route as the B9175 does now, notably at Ankerville Corner it continued further south east to take a more inland route along the hillside and through the village of Nigg, before meeting the shore of Nigg Bay further south. When the route was moved into Zone 9 with the extension of the A9 it was renumbered as the B9163. The B9163 continued, as it still does, across the Black Isle on the far side of the Nigg Ferry. However, by the 1950s the Nigg Ferry was for foot passengers only, and so this route had again become unclassified before the end of the 1950s.
With the construction of the oil rig fabrication yard, close to Nigg Ferry in the early 1970s, improved road access was required to accommodate the yard and the workforce of up to 5,000 at its peak. The route was upgraded to modern standards, now taking a more coastal road from Ankerville, following the line of a previously unclassified road. At some point in the 1970s or 80s the new route was reclassified as the B9175, the different number being issued to disconnect it from the surviving B9163 on the Black Isle. The date can be pinned down as between the mid 1970s when the Tain Bypass was opened, creating the B9174, and 1991 when the Dornoch Firth Bridge opened, creating the out of zone B9176.
