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8th March 2007

Why are  we waiting?

Mearns Council Conservative candidate George Carr has said that the prolonged wait for progress on the Marykirk / A90 junction at Laurencekirk is getting beyond a joke.

Mr Carr met this week with local campaigners Jill Campbell and some of her team who have already petitioned the Scottish Parliament on the issue of the junction, and were assured at the time that progress would be made quickly.  Ms Campbell has expressed her disappointment to Mr Carr that so little has happened to bring some progress towards a permanent solution to the problem. “The temporary speed restrictions at the junction have been in place for two years now,” she said, “but the problems at that junction are still very serious.  You only have to use it during a morning rush hour to experience it – the volume of traffic, cars and large lorries, stacking up on the central reservation, and vehicles accelerating as soon as they pass the speed cameras.  On behalf of the whole campaign team and the 8,000 people who signed our petition, I feel totally fobbed off by the Executive’s actions and frankly disgusted at the slow progress that’s been made.”

Mr Carr has remarked, furthermore, that with a Lib Dem Councillor, MSP, MP and now the second  Lib Dem Transport Minister, one would have thought that progress would have been made quicker than this! “I also find it incredible that our local MSP wants to gather further information on near misses and other accidents.  The time for consultation on this issue has long since passed and as Jill has told me, 7 people have already died there.  To preside over a temporary junction that is not fit for purpose on the main arterial route north and south, smacks of complacency at every level of the present Lib Dem administration. It’s now time to knock heads together and get action.”