An blitz planned by pressure group
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THE Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway is to be asked to take stronger measures against speeding heavy lorries on the notorious A75 Gretna-Stranraer Euroroute. This was decided by the A75 Action Group, who held their first annual meeting in Castle Douglas last week.
Alexander Campbell will also be asked to study whether a plan by police in Yorkshire to take action against drivers of heavy lorries who drive in convoy would work on the A75. The move came after the meeting was told that lorries were travelling too fast on the road and sometimes there was up to eight lorries grouped together making it impossible to overtake.
It was also agreed that the group, which was set up to pressure the Scottish Office to speed up repairs and by-passes to the A75, should ask Mr Campbell to continue strong action against lorries and drivers who travelled without in surance, licences or had faulty brakes.
In her report secretary Mrs Alexandra Wolffe said that in their first year they had managed, after some delay and difficulty, to persuade Lord Kirkhill, Minister of State for Transport, to come and look at the read. They were able to talk to him at Gatehouse and near Annan and present him with the petition with 14,000 signatures.
"In some ways it may seem that the drive along the road was something of an anticlimax, a mere public relations chore on his part. But the very fact that he came, the first Minister ever to have done so, is significant, and means that the Scottish Office is aware of conditions on our road," she said.
Mrs Wolffe said that it was shortly after the Minister's visit that the programme of proposed bypasses was published and it was actually during his short visit to Gatehouseof-Fleet that they were told that after the present programme was completed, consideration would be given to bypassing Crocketford, Springholm and Ringford.