The phrase “six days trial” has taken on a new meaning due to plans to close the A82 in Glen Coe overnight for resurfacing work in the run up to two motorbike events in Lochaber.
The real Fort William-based Scottish Six Days Trial – one of the biggest events on the Lochaber events calendar – is due to start on Monday May 2.
And the Scottish Pre-’65 Trial is to be held around Kinlochleven area on Friday April 29 and Saturday April 30.
But trunk roads maintenance agency Bear Scotland is planning to close the Fort William to Glasgow trunk road overnight at two locations in Glen Coe for six nights from Sunday until Friday April 29.
The original plan was to close the road in both directions at Laraig Elidhe Bridge overnight from 7pm to 7am from Sunday to Tuesday and at Ba Bridge from Wednesday to Friday of next week.
And a row erupted over the timing of the resurfacing work, which would coincide with competitors and spectators arriving for the two events, which bring more than £1.6million into the local economy.
Councillor Andrew Baxter, Fort William and Ardnamurchan, said: “These two events bring thousands of extra people into Lochaber and are vital to the local economy.
“I can’t understand why Transport Scotland didn’t think this would be a problem.”
And he wrote to Bear pointing out that visitors attending these events start arriving from Monday of next week and asking for the closures to start at 10pm instead of 7pm.
He wrote: “They will be greeted by an unexpected road closure and a possible lengthy wait until convoy traffic can pass.
“This is an unacceptable road closure, scheduled for one of the busiest event periods in Lochaber.”
And Stewart Maclean, of the A82 Partnership campaign group, said the closures should be delayed until 9pm to “partially mitigate this further disruption to our travel”.
A spokeswoman for Bear last night (Tuesday) said they were reducing the closure hours to 9pm to 6am.
She said: “We’ve taken on board comments from stakeholders during our consultation process for the two schemes at Glen Coe and will continue to take any further feedback into consideration.”
She added that they would reduce disruption to users of the A82 as much as possible and would ensure that hourly access was maintained through the site when the night-time closures were in place.
