Wide load causes mid-day roads chaos on A82
THERE was chaos on Fort William’s roads on Monday when a wide-load lorry held up queues of traffic, writes Ellie Forbes.
The lorry, believed to be heading to Glensanda Quarry, blocked the A82 between Ballachulish and Fort William around noon.
Queues of traffic built up on the trunk road over the lunch time rush as the load blocked the road.
To make matters worse, there was extra traffic on the road as a result of the Corran Ferry being cancelled.
Stewart MacLean from the A82 Partnership said: ‘Common sense has gone out of the window. Who approved the movement of an extremely wide load between Fort William and Corran on a Monday morning?
‘The road was blocked/severely restricted bringing chaos once again to the Lochaber community, businesses and visitors.’
A police spokesperson told the
Lochaber Times the load did not have a police escort and that local police had not been made aware of it coming. However Mr MacLean said it had been escorted by Police Scotland’s Abnor- mal Loads Team from Dundee. Mr MacLean said: ‘We [the partnership] have had absolutely no information about it coming. We have created a fuss about this in the past because of the timing of these loads coming up the A82. They should be coming at night time.
‘It’s absolutely ludicrous it is coming through on a Monday morning.’ Responding to the news on the
Lochaber Times Facebook page, readers were shocked, calling the situation a ‘farce’ and echoing the need for these wide loads to move at night.
Iain Davidson said: ‘Why, oh why, would anyone do this through the day at this time of year? Staggering.’
Gwyn Moses from Gallery in the Fort said: ‘It’s almost like it’s deliberately timed to make it most difficult for people who live here or are just visiting.’
Sandra Jamieson said: ‘We got stuck in this. Why was this being moved during the day, causing ridiculous tail backs?’