Second city road closure after 'No gridlock this time' pledge
THE INVERNESS to Fort William road will be closed overnight for a second time tomorrow after Highland Council and contractors gave assurances there would be no repeat of Tuesday morning’s traffic chaos.
The planned closure will be from 7pm Thursday overnight until 7am Friday.
There was fury when the city became massively gridlocked on Tuesday during the peak traffic period because the installation of a new roundabout for the West Link road at Tomnahurich hit a glitch and the vital A82 route did not re-open at 7am as promised.
The problem was then exacerbated by inadequate diversion signs and a lack of information being broadcast to the public.
It was 11am before the situation was eased with the installation of traffic lights.
The council and contractor Wills Bros apologised to motorists for the chaos.
A council spokeswoman said a post mortem was undertaken with Wills Bros and discussions included the extent of the construction works, the adequacy of the diversion signing and also providing information to the travelling public when problems were encountered.
The council stressed Thursday night’s planned closure would not happen until adequate measures were agreed with the council to ensure that such problems are not encountered again, and yesterday a spokeswoman said they were satisfied with additional measures put in place.
Council head of infrastructure Colin Howell said: "We have carried out a full review of what happened and put extra measures in place, including agreed mitigation measures, a revised work programme and extra traffic management, plus additional signage to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
"With all these measures in place we are confident these overnight works will proceed as planned and the road will reopen to traffic at 7am on Friday morning.”
Wills Bros said that when it was realised the road could not be re-opened by 7am the workforce concentrated on trying to open the road to traffic as soon as possible, but this caused the delays that occurred.
Traffic heading in from Loch Ness on the busy trunk route will again be diverted up General Booth Road to Muirtown swing bridge and then into town via Telford Street. Traffic heading west will face similar diversions, but in reverse.
Motorists are advised to allow additional time for their journeys.
Drivers should also be aware that road lining works will be carried out during the day on Tuesday, November 1, so temporary lane closures will be in place and again drivers should be prepared for delays and allow for extra journey times.
