Minister should visit

Sir, I wrote a week or two back about the dangerous bend at Strone Point, near Inveraray.

I was interested in the replies to my letter from Julie Sutton, published in the July 21 edition of the Advertiser, and the letter in last week’s edition from Robert Wakeham.

I am glad that both recognise that this is a bad corner and that failure to reach agreement between the trunk roads authority and the appointed contractor is a sorry state of affairs.

The A83 is a trunk road. Argyll and Bute does not have a single dual carriageway anywhere on its trunk roads. Other parts of Scotland do have dual carriageways.

We will probably never have any dual carriageways as the cost would be enormous. So, please, try to make the roads we have which are like the curate’s egg – good in parts – better throughout.

The Strone bend is particularly serious. Perhaps temporary (never permanent) traffic lights would assist at peak times until the necessary work is done.

Narrowing a trunk road is not a good idea, though it was done a good few years ago at Minard to instal a footpath for those living in the shore houses there.

Could not our MSP, Michael Russell, persuade his colleague responsible for roads to visit and see for himself this dangerous bend.

Transport minister Humza Yousaf has visited the Rest and be Thankful and things seem to be somewhat better there now, though not perfect.

I am sure the police and roads authorities would be pleased to give the minister full details of accidents, with death and injury statistics available, should he visit this site.

The road is really part of the old ‘military road’ over the Rest to Inveraray and north to Fort William. It served remarkably well, with some alterations, until the late 1940s onwards, when even then a car was pretty fast that could reach a top speed just over 50mph, and likewise motorbikes.

Times change. This bend has not.

Niall Iain MacLean, Inveraray.