IT is home to the UK’s first Dark Sky Park, the birthplace of our national bard, rolling green hills and our only sea routes to Ireland, but residents of South West Scotland say they’ve been forgotten and are cut off as much-heralded road improvements have failed to materialise.
There are only two main routes in and out of the area – the A75 along the south of Dumfries and Galloway from Gretna to Stranraer and the A77, running north from the ferry port at Cairnryan up to Kilmarnock. Local campaigners say hundreds of lorries use these roads every day heading to and from the ferries, leading to congestion, frustration, accidents and frequent repairs.
READ MORE: Transport campaigners warn Stranraer is ‘a town living in fear’
They have set up the apolitical A77 Action Group, bringing together concerned residents from the affected areas in Dumfries and Galloway and South and East Ayrshire, to put pressure on ministers to commit to improvements which were first promised decades ago.
Donald McHarrie, from the group, said: “The main issue is the A77 is namely an un-engineered road and, as a result, is unfit for purpose for the type of traffic using it.
“Southbound from [the main] Whitletts Roundabout at Ayr there are only three dedicated overtaking opportunities … and that’s it. Traffic gets bunched up with or without traffic off the ferry. This is a major cause of driver frustration, which then leads to collisions on this road.”
If there is an accident between Cairnryan and Girvan, McHarrie, from Stranraer, said the resulting diversion is on the A714 and A75, with the former even less suited to consistent, heavy traffic.
“These road closures are happening to often,” he added. “This month alone Stranraer and the ports at Cairnryan are facing another weekend of trunk road closures on the A75.
“Given that successive governments have never had a transport strategy towards the south west, what we have is a direct result of that lack of strategy.”
John Campbell, from Maybole and another leading figure in the group, has been campaigning for road improvements for around 30 years.
He was made redundant three times in the 1970s and 80s when employers closed down in the area and moved to other parts of the country which were served by motorways and dual carriageways.
As well as the thousands of jobs he said this has cost the local economy, he focuses on the human toll after spending more than 30 years as a part-time firefighter.
There have been 550 accidents on the two roads in the six years to 2017, 30 of them fatal.
Campaigner John Campbell
“I’ve been to hundreds of crashes and dozens of fatalities down the A77,” said Campbell. “That’s why I’ve been campaigning for improvements for so long.”
The group have prepared their case well. They have hundreds of pages of statistics, policy documents and correspondence, and every claim they make is backed up by research.
Campbell pointed out that billions of pounds had been committed to dualling the A9, improvements on the A1 and to trunk roads in and around Aberdeen, including the A96 to Inverness. However, he said the A77 passed through eight communities with a 30mph speed limit, which was unacceptable on such a busy route carrying billions of pounds of exports to ferry ports.
Members of the group have met various Scottish Government ministers and politicians and have a petition in the Scottish Parliament calling for upgrades to the main routes, along with improvements to rail services.
Transport Scotland said Infrastructure Secretary Michael Matheson had met MSPs and interest groups, as well as transport operators, in Stranraer in August, to set out how it would deliver the South West Scotland Transport Study.
“This study is considering how we can improve road, rail, public transport and active travel on the key strategic corridors including those served by the A75, A76, A77 and A701 together with the railway corridors to Stranraer and Carlisle via Kilmarnock and Dumfries, with a focus on access to the ports at Cairnryan,” said a spokesperson.
“It will also identify a range of options for improving transport that can be considered as part of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review which will look at future transport infrastructure projects for the whole of Scotland.”
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