Perth roads chaos has tragic ending

TRAFFIC: Motorcyclist killed and ‘horrendous’ M90 delays

A weekend of chaos on Perthshire roads ended in a fatal accident yesterday.

BEAR Scotland has apologised after roadworks saw the M90 at Friarton Bridge suffer “horrendous” delays for two consecutive days.

The £325,000 resurfacing project caused major disruption, with tailbacks for several miles in both directions as a contraflow system was put in place to allow closure of the southbound carriageway.

In an unrelated incident, a motorcyclist was killed in a crash on the A93 Perth to Blairgowrie road at Old Scone around 4pm yesterday.

The body in charge of Scotland’s trunk roads network has been pilloried over long and unforeseen roadworks delays on one of Tayside’s busiest routes.

The M90 ground to an abrupt halt around 2pm on Saturday as lengthy queues of traffic approached the Friarton Bridge on the outskirts of Perth.

Motorists were stuck in long lines of traffic between the Broxden roundabout and the Friarton Bridge with commuters stacking up in both directions as far back as Bridge of Earn and Kinfauns.

The chaos had a knock-on effect in Perth itself with traffic ground almost to a standstill in Tay Street and South Street as drivers attempted to dodge the roadworks.

And the disruption was repeated around 5pm yesterday with some reporting delays of more than an hour.

Roadworks on the bridge’s southbound carriageway, costing £325,000, led to a contraflow system being put in operation.

Motorists accused BEAR Scotland of failing to adequately warn that the roadworks were in place.

However, the agency claimed early warning signs were in place and defended the actions of their workforce, who were working in split shifts.

The kick-off for the Irn-Bru cup tie between Brechin and Dunfermline Athletic was delayed by 10 minutes on Saturday with some fans reporting it had taken nearly two hours to get from the outskirts of Perth to Dundee.

David Griffiths, who was travelling from Inverness towards Perth, claimed there was a lack of warning about the bridge roadworks and blamed BEAR Scotland for failing manage the situation.

“None of the dot matrix signs between Inverness and the Inveralmond roundabout in Perth said a word about this,” he said.

“Luckily, I heard the roadworks being mentioned in a traffic report on the radio.”

Meanwhile, Iain Waddell was driving from Perth to Errol and said this journey took him 90 minutes.

He said: “In that time I didn’t see a single police traffic car, but what annoyed me the most was that there was no work being done at this time – seems BEAR Scotland are only working during the night.”

A BEAR Scotland spokesman apologised for the delays.

He said: “Saturday’s day shift finished work on their section of the road ahead of schedule between 3pm and 4pm, which meant there was a short break in between the nightshift work getting under way at 6.30pm.”

Delays continued yesterday as the roadworks stuttered to their conclusion this morning.

None of the dot matrix signs between Inverness and the Inveralmond roundabout in Perth said a word about this. DAVID GRIFFITHS

Picture: Steve MacDougall. The works were due to finish this morning but the weekend brought frustration for drivers .