Following several fatal crashes and delays to the A9 dualling programme Perth and Kinross councillors are calling on Scotland’s Transport Minister to make accessing Dunkeld, Birnam and Strathbraan safer.
A motion put before councillors this week requested the installation of a roundabout “at the very minimum”.
Strathtay councillors Ian James and Claire McLaren tabled a strongly worded motion requesting council leader – and fellow Strathtay councillor – Grant Laing write to Kevin Stewart “to demand a timetable of deliverance of greatly improved road safety measures”.
The issue was raised at a meeting of Perth and Kinross Council on Wednesday, May 10.
The SNP council leader was uneasy with the wording used in the motion but was “happy to support the thrust of the request”.
Cllr Laing instead suggested the three ward councillors get together and ask for a meeting with Kevin Stewart and some of his Transport Scotland colleagues “to discuss what can be done”.
He said: “I do drive into Dunkeld once or twice a week and I do understand the frustration and you feel the pressure behind you – which you shouldn’t – of five or six vehicles willing you to go and sometimes make an error and go when the road is not clear to do so.”
But the SNP leader was reluctant to make demands to Scotland’s Transport Minister and said: “I’m not a road safety expert and I don’t believe either of my colleagues are so to demand a roundabout without knowing the pros and cons of that would be easy for them to say ‘We can’t do that’ and that would be the end of it.
“If we have a suite of options which they could do to improve it might be a better way forward.”
Liberal Democrat elected member Bailie Claire McLaren said she was “delighted to accept the council leader’s proposal”.
Previously tabling her motion, Bailie McLaren told councillors: “Drivers feel they are taking their life in their hands when crossing traffic flow.
“This motion is not about a dualling programme of the A9. It is to ask that a serious road safety issue is addressed, not ignored – one which the communities are desperate to have the need for recognised combined with a plan as to how improvements will be delivered.”
Perth and Kinross Council’s longest serving councillor, Willie Robertson, voiced his support.
He said: “Anyone who’s there on a busy weekend or during the summer knows it’s an absolute nightmare trying to get out of the junction back onto the A9 – traffic queued all the way back to the Telford [Dunkeld] Bridge.”
He said it was “terrifying” to witness the risks people were willing to take to cross the A9.
The Liberal Democrat councillor added: “I’m delighted they have brought this forward to address a serious road safety issue. I don’t see this section of the A9 being dualled within the next 10 years.
The revised motion that Strathtay councillors request a meeting with transport minister Kevin Stewart was unanimously approved.
