Judgement day for region's roads approaches

Nov 7 2008 By Patricia Lewis

THE FUTURE of Dumfries and Galloway’s trunk roads will be revealed later this month.

The Scottish Executive and Transport Scotland are due to release a major review detailing key roads which the government will be upgrading in a 10 year project between 2012 and 2022.

The Chief Executive of Transport Scotland Malcolm Reed announced that the outcome of the Strategic Transport Project Review and which, if any, trunk roads in Dumfries and Galloway would be upgraded would be known at some point later this month.

Local people will discover this month if the SNP Scottish Executive has recognised the need for major trunk road upgrades in Dumfries and Galloway, when Scottish ministers announce their transport blueprint for the next decade.

The announcement has come after calls were made from local MP Russell Brown to the Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson to bring the publication of the report forward which was originally due for release next summer.

Russell Brown said: “This is D-Day for our roads infrastructure. In all my correspondence with the SNP Scottish Executive asking them why they’ve made no commitment to new investment to upgrade our trunk roads and calling on them to take action, the response I keep getting is wait for the Strategic Transport Projects Review.

“The publication of this review is now imminent so after a long wait we will finally discover if the SNP have responded to the pressure and acknowledged the obvious need for massive improvements to our region’s roads like a Dumfries southern bypass and the long-overdue Springholm and Crocketford bypass to make them safer, and to help develop the local economy.”

The A75 Springholm to Crocketford is one of several roads in the region that is notorious for accidents where Russell Brown and campaigners have been calling for upgrades for years.

It is hoped that the report will also suggest further upgrades to the A76 Dumfries to Sanquhar route which is currently undergoing trunk road improvements between Mennock and Thornhill.