Highlands and Islands MSP Dave Thompson has pledged his personal support to a local campaign for badly-needed improvements to a key road which connects communities along the West Coast and crosses to Inverness.
The Nationalist politician, who was recently announced as the SNP candidate for the new Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency at next year's Scottish Parliament election, met Stewart Maclean of The A82 Partnership near Fort William on Thursday morning to discuss concerns about a lack of investment in the route over previous decades.
Since the SNP formed the Scottish Government at Holyrood in 2007, work to improve the route has progressed at a faster rate but ironically this has led to concerns about the number of days the road has been closed for repairs and upgrades.
Particular areas of concern highlighted by Mr Maclean on Thursday morning included the road's junction with the A830 road to Mallaig, the notorious Pulpit Rock corner and the A85 junction at Crianlarich.
Additionally Mr Maclean told of concern that a Route Action Plan presented to the Scottish Government in 2008 was moving forward too slowly and that current roadworks in the Fort William area were causing gridlock in the town.
Mr Thompson said he was impressed by the detail of Mr Maclean's knowledge of the subject and immediately promised to redouble his efforts to ensure transport minister Stewart Stevenson was kept informed of developments so he could instruct Transport Scotland and its contractor Scotland TranServ to give their full attention to pressing forward the timescale of improvements with sufficient mitigation measures to minimise delays.
"I was already aware of the inconvenience that Lochaber and the rest of the West Highlands have been left with following decades of underinvestment in the area's transport infrastructure but Mr Maclean did a very good job of conveying the frustration local people and businesses feel that this bottled up backlog of work is being taken forward now that a Scottish Government with the interests of this community at heart is in power at Holyrood," Mr Thompson said.
"After listening to the case made by The A82 Partnership, I am more than ever 100 per cent behind their campaign. These upgrades are important not just to reduce the horrifying accident toll on the route, but to remove a restriction to the growth of the Lochaber economy.
"For too long businesses in the West Highlands have been presented with an extra hurdle to overcome because their customers, suppliers and potential clients in other areas can regard this part of the country as too remote to do business with because of travel difficulties."
Mr Maclean was pleased to hear the politician had already grasped the importance of the route to the area's economy and was prepared to stress this in dealings with the transport minister.
"The more people who understand the problems this road causes the better," the campaigner said. "Our petition attracted nine thousand signatures and was the largest to reach the desk of ministers at Holyrood.
"What we are looking for is a guarantee that Pulpit Rock and Crianlarich junction works are completed by 2012/13 and that we get a specific timetable for the completion of other works in the Route Action Plan.
"The important thing from today's meeting was that Dave Thompson recognises the economic arguments for improvements to the A82 and stresses that to the Scottish Government."
Mr Thompson agreed: "Work at Pulpit Rock and the Crianlarich Junction is already underway and scheduled to finish in the timescale Mr Maclean is looking for. It is vital to keep up the pressure to ensure there is no slippage from this timescale and I will be part of that process."
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