Town needs action after 20-year delay

Over 20 years ago Perth and Kinross Council decided to build two relief roads to ease congestion in the town centre of Coupar Angus.

The first, which was completed in 1996, followed the line of the former railway. As for the second road, local councillor Alan Grant stated in the town newsletter: “For the future, residents may rest assured I will be trying my best to secure the funding for the second phase, the Dundee spur as it is locally known.”

Well, 20 years have passed and there is still no sign of the second relief road. Traffic is worse than ever as ever-larger vehicles ride up on to the pavement to pass each other, forcing pedestrians to jump out of the way and causing houses to shake when they clatter back down on to the road.

Perth and Kinross Council has done nothing to alleviate the traffic problem of heavy traffic in Queen Street. Even the cheap and cheerful stop-gap measures agreed with local councillors last year (minor changes in the road layout and traffic light position) have been postponed.

And now we see there is no mention of the relief road in the latest council infrastructure plans, to be discussed at Wednesday’s meeting of the full council.

Mrs Jo Kettles and I recently set up an action group Beware Queen Street A923 (you can find it on Facebook) to press for the long-promised relief road or at least some effective safety measures to improve the situation. We have repeatedly written to local politicians, including John Swinney and Pete Wishart, as well as the four Perth and Kinross councillors for Coupar Angus. We haven’t received so much as an acknowledgement.

The problems in Queen Street are widely known. At the weekend’s Coupar Angus community market we gathered 86 signatures in the space of three hours.

We took this photograph to give your readers a clearer idea of the difficulties.