A family who moved to Aberdeen a few weeks ago to start a new life are now facing bankruptcy because of plans to end gridlock at the infamous Haudagain roundabout.
Brahmanandan Roy quit his job as a BT engineer and his 18-year-old son Prince Roy dropped out of college so the family could leave London to embark on a new business venture in the Granite City.
But when the family arrived to take over the running of the Costcutter shop on Great Northern Road, their dream quickly turned into a nightmare.
They were shocked to find that the store would soon be surrounded on all sides by dual carriageways – and that hundreds of their customers’ homes would be bulldozed to make way for a new link road.
The shop’s accounts now show its turnover is down by £5,000 a week, and the family could face bankruptcy just weeks after buying the store for £98,000.
Mr Roy had visited the Costcutter a few years ago and had assumed it was continuing to thrive, unaware of Transport Scotland and Aberdeen City Council’s £30million plans to clear much of Middlefield to try to finally end the misery experienced by thousands of drivers every day at the Haudagain roundabout.
“I thought the family would be better-off but now we might have to declare bankruptcy,” said Mr Roy, 46.
“There’s so many families who are leaving. I might have to close down the shop.”
His son said: “I think maybe the most affected business is us. We’re going to be losing around £260,000 a year of our turnover due to customers’ housing being emptied.
“When we took over we found there was plans for the new road in place. We weren’t informed by the previous owners.
“We moved up from London. We moved up because of the business.
“We got to know of the plans for the road from our customers. There’s no passing trade or anything here either.”
Transport Scotland last week unveiled detailed designs for a new link road between North Anderson Drive and Auchmill Road, with construction expected to start at the end of 2017 and take two years.
A total of 127 homes will be bulldozed to make way for the scheme, and 54 are already empty because the council has started the process of moving tenants.
