‘Our nightmares have come true’
Traders’dismayasshopsandcafeslieempty
Businesses in Aberfoyle said their fears about the effect of roadworks on trade were realised this week with near empty shops and tea rooms.
Stirling Council had been under fire for closing the A821 road through the village for resurfacing work from Monday to today (Friday) – a time when English schools are on mid-term break .
Access and exit by this route was only possible during two halfhour windows between 9am and 3.30pm each day. The alternative was a lengthy drive via Callander and the Duke’s Pass.
Some traders, already concerned about the closure of a number of Aberfoyle shops in recent years, had said the village had been deserted this week. But others stressed the roadworks had made “no noticeable difference” to footfall.
Caroline Fleming, who runs the Trossachs.co.uk website, had posted photographs of an empty tea room and a long queue of traffic waiting to exit the village on the group’s Facebook page this week.
She described the council’s decision to close the road as “a disgrace” and said: “Sadly this is what happens to a rural community when those in charge don’t get it right and don’t listen: a village struggling to survive due to badly-timed and badly-planned roadworks.”
And Trevor Muir who runs Aberfoyle Delicatessen and employs four full-time staff said this week: “The village feels totally deserted. There have been a few busier spells when the road is open, but for a holiday week it has been a disaster.”
Aberfoyle Community Council chairman Trevor Geraghty pointed out this week that the group had lobbied Stirling Council for road openings to mitigate the disruption, as well as pursuing overnight working and contraflow working. The community council, he said, also ran email and social media campaigns and “communicated in every way we could in the very short time we had from when Stirling Council announced the works to the start of the project.”
Mr Geraghty added: “Hopefully these much-needed works will be complete this week and I would ask all those who love Aberfoyle to come and visit the village see it for what it is, not worse than it is, and then imagine it better.
“For all those businesses which have lost out this week all any of us can do is redouble our efforts to spend more locally, campaign for more investment and lobby for better digital infrastructure.”
One village shop owner, who did not wish to be named, however said she had seen no noticeable difference in trading levels.
She added: “Things were much as they were the previous week. It’s generally a quiet time of year. I also feel the village doesn’t need negative publicity. It turns potential visitors away.”
Stirling MSP Bruce Crawford had written to Stirling Council chief executive Stewart Carruth before the work began to call for a rethink on the timing of the works and for assurances that residents and businesses would be supported, but said this week he had not received a reply before the work began.
Mr Crawford also criticised “a serious lack of appropriate consultation” with people and businesses about the works going ahead, adding that residents in the area and organisations had only found out the road closure was to take place “just days before it began.”
The MSP added that he had written a further letter to Mr Carruth “asking him consider how this can be rectified in future so that these circumstances cannot happen again.”
Stirling Council pointed out this week that it had been in touch with Aberfoyle Primary School, the community council and other interested parties in the area since April about the proposed works.
The authority’s convener of the environment and housing committee, councillor Jim Thomson, said: “These sections of road were in a poor condition and badly needed repaired. The road works have been held back to as late in the season as possible in order to avoid the peak tourist periods and the major disruption to businesses that this would cause. Works have been planned to operate as effectively as possible whilst providing access and egress to local traffic.
“The ability to carry out the works using a single lane closure was not operationally possible. The scheme was conducted under a road closure as the road is not wide enough for the work to be completed under traffic lights.
“In addition, late October temperatures do not generally permit resurfacing work overnight.”
* In last week’s story about road closures in Aberfoyle it was stated that the village’s Scottish Wool Centre had closed.
We would like to point out that the visitor centre remains open. It was the Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop on Main Street which closed in 2016.