Drivers’ anger at 96-mile diversion for ‘totally unnecessary’ roadworks

Drivers face two-and-a-half-hour diversions due to overnight road works which caused lorries to queue for three miles in Scotland.

There are other roads to travel between 8pm and 6am, when the A75 in Dumfries and Galloway is closed for improvements.

But they’re often single track and unlit, which locals say are unsuitable for the heavy goods vehicles travelling this main route between Gretna and the Belfast ferries at Cairnryan.

‘On the first night that the closure happened, there were no diversion signs in place’, Liz Hitschmann, of Gatehouse of Fleet, said.

‘So the lorries were queued up all the way from Auchenlarie right the way back to Gatehouse which is some two to three miles.

‘And then because the lorries didn’t know where to go they were coming through Gatehouse, which is not really made for lorry traffic, and that in itself caused a lot of problems.’

Driving all the way north to Ayr before doubling back down along the A roads makes a 40-minute journey up to four times longer, BBC News reports.

To avoid it, drivers take the minor roads, which are made ‘unusable’ by the ‘wear and tear’ along them, according to local Mike Edwards.

Such levels of traffic are unusual for the ‘normally quiet’ area around the closures between Newton Stewart and Castle Douglas.

Mr Edwards said: ‘The inconvenience to locals is the unusually heavy traffic late into the night.’

That’s even with people afraid of travelling these minor roads at night, even if it means avoiding a journey four times as long as the normal route.

Campaigners against a new national park claim road works dented attendance at a recent meeting in Castle Douglas.

Denise Brownlee, of Gatehouse of Fleet, said: ‘Meetings we’ve had planned for Wigtown, Newton Stewart and elsewhere have all had to be cancelled because there’s no way in the dark and rain at this time of the year that I’m going to consider driving on some of this narrow track roads. It doesn’t feel safe.’

The road closures continue until Sunday morning. More are scheduled from October 28 to November 2.

Some locals believe the closures wouldn’t have been needed if a convoy system was used instead.

Amey, the firm maintaining the route on behalf of Transport for Scotland, said it has done all it could to minimise disruption during the £700,000 improvements made necessary due to the state of the road.

It said it had ‘extensive discussions’ with ferry operators, haulage companies and emergency services, and was suspending works during schools’ mid-term break.

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