Drivers were left furious yesterday after a blunder by road workers caused rush hour chaos in Inverness.
Hundreds of commuters, bus users and school children faced huge tailbacks throughout the morning as the closure of a key route into the city went wrong.
Highland Council was forced to issue an apology for a four-hour delay to the scheduled reopening of the A82 Fort William to Inverness route at the city’s Tomnahurich Bridge.
The closure was required to allow local authority contractors to carry out work on the West Link project, with the road scheduled to re-open at 7am.
But a problem with the road reconstruction meant that it could not be opened for traffic until about 11am, causing widespread gridlock.
And motorists on the other side of the city were also hit by delays yesterday morning due to a fault with the traffic lights at the Longman Roundabout.
Charleston Academy said that it had to delay the start of the school day because the A82 closure meant traffic was “not moving around the school”.
Stagecoach also said that many of its services in the Highland capital were “severely delayed” as a result of the closure.
Furious motorists took to social media to vent their frustration.
Fiona Dunbar, from Inverness, said: “It’s an absolute disgrace. The volume of traffic sitting on King Brude Road mostly at a standstill. Emergency services are going to have severe problems coming across that side of town.
“I hope if there are future ‘overnight closures’ then a bit more thought goes into it.”
Wendy Macintosh, from Drumnadrochit, said: “Just arrived home after a failed attempt to get into town. The Tomnahurich Bridge is shut traffic, queues up Charleston taking 40 minutes to get to Muirtown basin.”
A review was carried out on site by the council and its contractor Wills Bros, resulting in the authority saying that the next planned A82 closure tomorrow night “would not go ahead until adequate measures had been agreed to ensure that such problems are not encountered”.
Colin Howell, the council’s head of infrastructure, said: “Firstly I want to apologise to the public for the disruption that was encountered this morning. This was clearly unacceptable.
“Measures will be put in place and agreed to ensure that such issues do not arise again.”
John Stephens, contracts manager for Wills Bros. said: “Problems were encountered last night and it became clear that there were issues about whether the road could be reopened and also the adequacy of the diversion signs.
“The workforce concentrated on trying to open the road to traffic as soon as possible, but this did cause the delays that occurred.
“Wills Bros apologise for the disruption. We are working closely with the council to review works to be undertaken, signing and also publicity.”
He added: “I think we have learnt an important lesson this morning, and I give an assurance that significant efforts shall be made to ensure that this does not happen.
“I am confident that measures can be agreed such that the important night-time closure planned for this Thursday can progress with the agreement of the council.”
The road was due to be closed overnight tomorrow and Monday for further work on the £55million West Link, which will join the A82 with the Dores Road via a new bridge.
A diversion had been put in place via Muirtown Canal Bridge.
Asked about the delays at the Longman Roundabout, a Transport Scotland spokeswoman said: “The issues at Longman this morning were caused by a fault.
“Our contractors have repaired the problem and traffic is now flowing normally. This will continue to be monitored during the PM peak.”
