A casualty every three days: Why Scotland must urgently fix these two dangerous but vital roads
The A75 and A77 link the UK and Ireland via the ports at Cairnryan but have been suffering from chronic under-investment for far too long, writes Paul Grant of Stena Line
If I asked you which Scottish trunk road was most in need of being upgraded, I suspect you would immediately think about the A9. For sure, the road from Perth to Inverness – right up the spine of Scotland – is a major problem for the safety of its users and an inhibitor of the Highlands’ economic potential. The Scottish Government’s policy is that the road should be dualled, and so it should be.
Or you might think about the A96, another road which commands the attention of the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland, and which is also slated for dualling. It is an important road too, connecting Aberdeen and Inverness. It is also unsafe and likely holds back the growth ambitions of a region which sees itself as a centre of Scotland’s renewable energy future.
I suspect two roads that would not immediately spring to mind would be the A75 and the A77. But these are two of Scotland’s most important roads, and two of Britain’s most important.
Scotland’s slowest A-road
The A75 and A77, leading to the ports at Cairnryan, are among the busiest gateways between Britain and the island of Ireland, and onwards to continental Europe. The A75, indeed, is part of European Route 18, which runs all the way from Northern Ireland to Russia.
Both have a poor record on safety, carbon emissions and economic impact. There is a casualty caused by an accident every three days on these roads.
Figures calculated using emissions data from a leading haulier, based on a comparison between the A75 and the identical-length A55 (a dualled road from one of our ports in Wales), reveals that an additional 640 tonnes of carbon a year, or 1.75 tonnes per day, are emitted on the A75.
And the Scottish Government’s own data reveals that the A77 is Scotland’s slowest A-road, averaging less than 38mph, with the A75 not far behind on an average of under 45mph.
Yet these dangerous roads, which hamper economic progress and slow efforts to improve our environment, suffer from chronic under-investment which has often left us with the impression that they have been forgotten about. I’m pleased that this appears to be changing.
READ MORE: SNP’s failure to build dual carriageways is costing motorists' lives. But there is a solution
Productive talks with government
The South West Scotland Transport Alliance – primarily through us at Stena Line along with P&O Ferries and Belfast Harbour, and often supported by the Dumfries and Galloway Chamber of Commerce and the Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce – has been in productive discussions with the Scottish and UK governments for several years.
This has helped lead to the governments working together in an unusual and welcome collaboration which is delivering a feasibility study into the bypassing of Springholm and Crocketford along the A75, funded by the Department for Transport and delivered by Transport Scotland.
This is good. But it must be the beginning rather than the end. We are today publishing a comprehensive strategic study of the top priorities for upgrading the A75 and A77, written by a transport expert who was heavily involved in the creation of the Scottish Government’s second Strategic Transport Projects Review.
It cites 20 stretches of these two roads and allocates them a priority rating. This rating is based on a comprehensive matrix of considerations, including traffic flows, journey times, safety, community and local stakeholder support, engineering complexity, ease of delivery and cost. It has been delivered to Transport Scotland and the Scottish Government.
In respect of the A77, the top priorities to emerge from the study are between Ayr and Minishant, between Turnberry and Girvan, and a Turnberry bypass.
On the A75, improvements between Gretna and Annan, and between Annan and Hardgrove come out top, along with the Springholm and Crocketford bypass – already under consideration to replace the current road which snakes directly through both villages.
A worrying sign
There is, however, an immediate red flag. Transport Scotland’s feasibility study is allowing active consideration of whether the Springholm and Crocketford bypass should be dual or single carriageway.
The prospect of the bypass being made a single carriageway is of great concern to us at Stena Line. We have created a 21st-century port at Cairnryan, but we are met by 20th-century roads. The whole purpose, surely, of improving our infrastructure is to move forward, rather than to stand still. A single carriageway bypass would be a tragic missed opportunity, and a short-sighted false economy.
It would fail to take advantage of an opportunity to improve the safety of this stretch of the road, creating only marginal benefits. It would miss the opportunity to improve its emissions profile, creating only marginal benefits. And it would also miss the opportunity to improve the economic impact, once again creating only marginal benefits.
Must be dual carriageway
From the perspective of Stena Line, we have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in our port at Cairnryan. We want to develop it further with bigger ships carrying more passengers to Scotland, but we need to know that the roads will improve in a much more tangible way in order to plan with confidence for the future. Like any business, we can only invest based on the public infrastructure we encounter.
A single carriageway bypass at Springholm and Crocketford will send a signal that the Scottish Government does not take these roads seriously, and it is simply factual for me to state that it would not accelerate our investment decisions one bit. Being frank, from the perspective of offering confidence to us as an investor, if the bypass is not dualled then they would be as well not bothering to build it at all.
We are working with the teams involved in the feasibility study to emphasise our concerns and encourage them to adopt a bolder, more transformative approach. We have also written to the First Minister and, ahead of the election, to all political party leaders, and we hope to meet with whomever becomes First Minister in May to ensure they understand the gravity of our concerns.
Stena Line has a major role to play in Scotland’s economy and society, as an employer, an investor and a facilitator of economic growth. Along with P&O Ferries, we sail 24 times a day between Scotland and Northern Ireland, carrying nearly two million passengers a year, half a million cars and a similar number of freight vehicles. We carry a third of the passengers of the entire CalMac network, and five times the number of vehicles.
We have the ports, we have the passengers and we have the ability to invest. But we need the roads.
Paul Grant is trade director, Irish Sea North, at Stena Line
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